slasher

Etymology

It is formed from English slash + -er.^[1][2][3][4] The verb slash is recorded once in the Wycliffite Bible (1382) and otherwise only from the middle of the 16th century, and is perhaps from Old French esclachier (“to break”);^[1][3] Etymonline takes the Old French verb as a variant of esclater (“to break, splinter”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A fighter or bully: 1559, in the Mirror for Magistrates (the legend of the Blacksmith): "With slashers, slaues and snuffers so falshod is in price".^[1][5] Etymonline dates it to the 1550s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The first sense, a swaggering fighter, was still current in the 19th century, when it was also used admiringly of prize-fighters such as "the Liverpool Slasher" (1841) and "the Tipton Slasher" (1846).^[5][1] From 1815, in Scott's Guy Mannering, the word also named the weapon, a sword,^[1][3] and the 19th century added tools and machines that cut: a sizing machine for yarn, so called for its rapid working (1862), a billhook (1858), an implement for finding stones in brick clay (1884) and a multi-bladed circular saw for cutting logs to length (1892).^[1] In America it was also used from 1886 of a person who cut timber recklessly,^[1] and in Australia and New Zealand it names a tool or tractor-drawn machine for clearing scrub.^[6] A slasher was briefly a severe review, too (1849).^[1][2] The film sense appeared in the 1970s: Etymonline finds it by 1971, first of martial-arts films with much swordplay,^[3] and the Oxford Dictionary of New Words dates slasher as a name for a violent horror film to the mid-1970s, with the genre established in the mid-1980s through video rental and widely blamed for rising violent crime.^[7] In 20th-century slang it has also meant a vandal who cuts upholstery (American, 1954), a prisoner who cuts himself and, in British hospital slang, a surgeon.^[8]

Timeline

• 1559 – a fighter, a bully.^[1][5]
• 1815 – a sword, a weapon for slashing.^[1][3]
• 1849 – a severe criticism or review.^[1]
• 1858 – a billhook.^[1]
• 1862 – a high-speed sizing machine for yarn.^[1]
• 1886 – a person who cuts down timber recklessly.^[1]
• 1892 – a multi-bladed circular saw for cutting logs.^[1]
• 1971 – a violent film, at first one with prominent swordplay; later a horror film of knife attacks.^[3][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who attacks or kills people with a knife, razor or other blade.^[9][10][11]
2. A horror film in which a killer attacks a series of victims with a knife or similar weapon; also called a slasher film or slasher movie.^[2][11][12]
3. A person or thing that slashes.^[6][9][1]
4. A fighter or bully, especially one who swaggers with a weapon; a swashbuckler.^[9][1][2]
5. (Australia and New Zealand) A wooden-handled cutting tool, or a machine drawn by a tractor, for clearing scrub or undergrowth.^[6]
6. A circular saw with several blades, used to cut logs into set lengths.^[1][2][12]
7. A billhook.^[1][2]
8. A machine for sizing yarn.^[1][2]

Related words

• slash

Usage notes

Green's Dictionary of Slang records separately an underworld slasher meaning a blanket (1840), with no etymology, and a later slang slasher for the male genitals (from 1965), from the verb slash.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
2. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
5. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
6. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
7. ^ a b Knowles, Elizabeth; Elliott, Julia, eds. (1997), The Oxford Dictionary of New Words, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
9. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ a b Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1999), 2nd ed., New York: Random House
12. ^ a b Barber, Katherine, ed. (2004), The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., Toronto: Oxford University Press