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henchman

UK/ˈhɛnt͡ʃ.mən/US/ˈhɛnt͡ʃ.mən/
nounB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,704 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: henchmen

A henchman is a loyal follower who does the dirty work. The villain's henchmen, a political henchman, sent his henchmen.

The word is always hostile now, and it comes with an assumption of violence. It began as a job title meaning a groom or squire, literally a horse-man, and there was nothing sinister about it at all.

Definitions of henchman

  1. 1nounhenchmanA loyal follower who does the dirty work.B2+

    “The gang leader sent his henchmen to threaten the shop owner.”

henchman is a follower.

Where it comes from

Old English hengestmann means a horseman or groom, from hengest, a stallion, plus mann.

  1. Middle English

    henxman

  2. English, today

    henchman

From Middle English henxman. Middle English henxman (“page, attendant”), from Old English henġestmann,hengstmann (“groom”) literally “horseman”, from henġest + mann. Akin to archaic German Hengstmann (“groom”) and Icelandic hestamaður* (“horseman, groom”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

henchman in the wild

  • The term henchman originally referred to one who attended a horse for their employer, that is, a horse groom.

    Henchman

  • Hence, like constable and marshal, also originally stable staff, henchman became the title of a subordinate official in a royal court or noble household.

    Henchman

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.