from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
noun A loyal and trusted follower or subordinate.
noun A person who supports a political figure chiefly out of selfish interests.
noun A member of a criminal gang.
noun Obsolete A page to a prince or other person of high rank.
from The Century Dictionary.
noun A groom; a footman; a male attendant; a follower.
noun Hence A mercenary adherent; a venal follower; one who holds himself at the bidding of another.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
noun An attendant; a servant; a follower. Now chiefly used as a political cant term.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
noun A loyal and trusted follower or subordinate.
noun A person who supports a political figure chiefly out of selfish interests.
noun A member of a criminal gang.
noun obsolete A page to a prince or other person of high rank.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
noun someone who assists in a plot
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
[Middle English hengsman, henshman, servant to a person of rank : hengest, horse (from Old English) + man, man; see man.]
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
From Middle English hencheman, henseman, henxman ("a groom, page, attendant"), from Old English *hengstmann, *hengestmann (literally "horse-man"), from hengst, hengest ("stallion, horse, steed, gelding") (from Proto-Germanic *hangistaz (“stallion”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱanḱest-, *kankest- (“horse”)) + mann ("man"). Cognate with German Hengstmann ("a groom"), Icelandic hestamaður ("horseman, groom"). More at man.
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Examples
By the time he gets around to killing her, however, Ferguson has sent his own man -- so Victor kills him just as the henchman is about to shoot Rose, then hires himself out to Rose as a bodyguard.
And nurtured gently, and thy henchman named, that is, gave him the right of sponging; if he had meant to allude to Patroclus as his son's friend, he would not have used the word henchman; for he was a free man.
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