MURDERER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does murderer mean? 

• MURDERER (noun)
  The noun MURDERER has 1 sense:

1. a criminal who commits homicide (who performs the unlawful premeditated killing of another human being)

  Familiarity information: MURDERER used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MURDERER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A criminal who commits homicide (who performs the unlawful premeditated killing of another human being)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

liquidator; manslayer; murderer

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 

Ay truly, I believe you; I believe poor Harry is killed; and I believe his murderer (for what purpose, God alone can tell) is still lurking in his victim’s room.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

This picture is gone, and was doubtless the temptation which urged the murderer to the deed.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

You will admit, Mr. Holmes, that there is a possibility that these initials are those of the second person who was present—in other words, of the murderer.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If aware of her having viewed him as a murderer, she could not wonder at his even turning her from his house.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

You would do me a greater still if you could lay your hands on the murderer of John Straker.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I was now, it seemed, cut off upon both sides; behind me the murderers, before me this lurking nondescript.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Why don’t you come down and kill me, you murderer? You can do it! I ain’t afraid!

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

Each of those nicks is for a slave murderer—a good row of them—what?

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At the first breath of suspicion you, my intimate friend, the man who knew me best, set me down as a thief and a murderer.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)