murderer

Etymology

It has more than one source: it is partly formed within English as murder with the suffix -er,^[2][3][4] and partly borrowed from Anglo-Norman murdreour, mordreour,^[2][3] from Old French mordrir (“to murder”) with the agent suffix.^[2][4] Etymonline gives the earliest Middle English form as murtherer (early 14th century), later mordrer, and traces the French side further to Medieval Latin murdrarius,^[5] which the OED records in British sources from 1214.^[2] Old English had other words for a murderer, among them Old English myrþra and morþorwyrhta, literally a "murder-wright".^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

A person who kills another unlawfully, a person guilty of murder: 1340, in the Ayenbite of Inwyt.^[2] Etymonline dates mordrer to the mid-14th century and murtherer to the early 14th.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The word was soon used loosely of anything that destroys or kills (c1400, in Langland),^[2] and Chaucer used it for a traitor, a sense that died out in the 15th century.^[2] Things that kill were also called murderers: a small cannon or mortar, especially one mounted on a warship to repel boarders (from 1495),^[2][3] a dagger (c1500),^[2] and, from the early 19th century, fishing tackle with many hooks used for catching cod.^[2][4] Wright's dialect dictionary records this fishing murderer in Orkney, a long lead bar hung with hooks and towed behind the boat.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined a murderer as one who has shed human blood unlawfully.^[7] The murderers' row of New York's Tombs prison gave a figurative baseball term from 1858,^[5] and murtherer survives as an archaic and dialect spelling.^[3]

Timeline

• early 14th century – murtherer (Etymonline).^[5]
• 1340 – a person who murders another.^[2]
• c1390 – a traitor, in Chaucer (obsolete by about 1460).^[2]
• 1495 – a small cannon or mortar.^[2][3]
• c1500 – a dagger (obsolete).^[2]
• 1755 – Johnson defines it as one who has killed a person criminally.^[7]
• c1811 – fishing tackle for catching cod.^[2]

Modern meaning

Noun

1. A person who has committed murder.
2. (historical) A small cannon or mortar, used especially on ships against boarders.
3. (historical) A weighted bar or line with many hooks for catching cod.

Word family

• self-murderer

Related words

• murder
• murderess
• murderous
• murther

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.