| Library / English Dictionary |
MURDERER
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A criminal who commits homicide (who performs the unlawful premeditated killing of another human being)
Synonyms:
liquidator; manslayer; murderer
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("murderer" is a kind of...):
criminal; crook; felon; malefactor; outlaw (someone who has committed a crime or has been legally convicted of a crime)
killer; slayer (someone who causes the death of a person or animal)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "murderer"):
assassin; assassinator; bravo (a murderer (especially one who kills a prominent political figure) who kills by a surprise attack and often is hired to do the deed)
butcher (a brutal indiscriminate murderer)
cutthroat (someone who murders by cutting the victim's throat)
fratricide (a person who murders their brother or sister)
gun; gun for hire; gunman; gunslinger; hired gun; hit man; hitman; shooter; torpedo; triggerman (a professional killer who uses a gun)
hatchet man; iceman (a professional killer)
infanticide (a person who murders an infant)
mass murderer (a person who is responsible for the deaths of many victims in a single incident)
murderess (a woman murderer)
parricide (someone who kills his or her parent)
ripper (a murderer who slashes the victims with a knife)
serial killer; serial murderer (someone who murders more than three victims one at a time in a relatively short interval)
Instance hyponyms:
Jack the Ripper (an unidentified English murderer in the 19th century)
Derivation:
murder (kill intentionally and with premeditation)
Context examples:
He walked over and looked down at the murderer.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
He was trying to utter the name of his murderer.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The thief or the murderer could roam London on such a day as the tiger does the jungle, unseen until he pounces, and then evident only to his victim.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
"He's a downright murderer, I know," was the dog-musher's comment.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
But God helped her, so that she passed safely over them, and then she and the old woman went upstairs, opened the door, and hastened as fast as they could from the murderers’ den.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
Alleyne, looking back, saw that the murderer had drawn bread and cheese from his scrip, and was silently munching it, with the protecting cross still hugged to his breast, while the other, black and grim, stood in the sunlit road and threw his dark shadow athwart him.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I had no occasion of bribing, flattering, or pimping, to procure the favour of any great man, or of his minion; I wanted no fence against fraud or oppression: here was neither physician to destroy my body, nor lawyer to ruin my fortune; no informer to watch my words and actions, or forge accusations against me for hire: here were no gibers, censurers, backbiters, pickpockets, highwaymen, housebreakers, attorneys, bawds, buffoons, gamesters, politicians, wits, splenetics, tedious talkers, controvertists, ravishers, murderers, robbers, virtuosos; no leaders, or followers, of party and faction; no encouragers to vice, by seducement or examples; no dungeon, axes, gibbets, whipping-posts, or pillories; no cheating shopkeepers or mechanics; no pride, vanity, or affectation; no fops, bullies, drunkards, strolling whores, or poxes; no ranting, lewd, expensive wives; no stupid, proud pedants; no importunate, overbearing, quarrelsome, noisy, roaring, empty, conceited, swearing companions; no scoundrels raised from the dust upon the merit of their vices, or nobility thrown into it on account of their virtues; no lords, fiddlers, judges, or dancing-masters.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
What did he there? Could he be (I shuddered at the conception) the murderer of my brother?
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
He lost not an hour in breaking entirely with the murderer.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
“The real murderer is standing immediately behind you.”
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
