Word.ws English Dictionary

underhangman

underhangman noun: an assistant or deputy hangman.

Noun

underhangman (plural underhangmen)

  1. (nonce-word, Shakespeare) An assistant or deputy hangman.
    • […] thou wert dignified enough,
      Even to the point of envy, if ’twere made
      Comparative for your virtues, to be styled
      The under-hangman of his kingdom […]1611 April (first recorded performance), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Cymbeline”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard...

Forms of underhangman

pluralunderhangmen

Origin of underhangman

From under- + hangman.

Questions about underhangman

What does underhangman mean?
Underhangman means an assistant or deputy hangman.
What part of speech is underhangman?
Underhangman is a noun.
What is the plural of underhangman?
The plural of underhangman is underhangmen.

Words near underhangman in the dictionary

  1. underhandly
  2. underhandness
  3. underhands
  4. underhang
  5. underhanging
  6. underhangman
  7. underhangmen
  8. underhangs
  9. underharvest
  10. underharvested
  11. underharvesting

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: underhangman (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-underhangman.wav.

Cite this entry: “underhangman.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/underhangman. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.