murderer
nounUK /ˈmɜːdəɹə/ · US /ˈmɝdɚɚ/
Etymology From Middle English murderere; equivalent to murder + -er.
1
A person who commits murder.
- Neither does a great nation […] debate, with drivelling tears, and diabolical sympathies, whether it ought not piously to save, and nursingly cherish, the lives of its murderers.
- It was two o'clock when she came to herself and called for the police. The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his victim in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled. The stick with which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and very tough and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the stress of this insensate cruelty; […]1886 January 5, Robert Louis Stevenson, “The Carew Murder Case”, in Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., →OCLC, page 37:
2 more examples
- I had never defrauded a man of a farthing, nor called him knave behind his back. But now the last rag that covered my nakedness had been torn from me. I was branded a blackleg, card-sharper, and murderer.1908, W[illiam] B[lair] M[orton] Ferguson, chapter II, in Zollenstein, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, →OCLC:
- “Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend,” observed Poirot philosophically. “You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.”1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 150:
- Derived terms
- archmurderer, axe murderer, axe-murderer, child murderer, desk murderer, mass murderer, multimurderer, murderers' row, Murderers' Row, nonmurderer, self-murderer, serial murderer
- Coordinate terms
- murderess