Henchman

In today's parlance, a henchman is often referred to as a "hangman's servant ", bailiff, traitor for sale or generally a person who is subservient to a villain and who carries out his orders. The obsolete word hunter is synonymous with henchman .

history

The term henchman has long since ceased to be used in its original meaning “leader of a crowd” ( Old High German  scario ); Even in Middle High German , henchman was used in the sense of “court servant ”, and in Zedler's Universal Lexikon (1732–1754) henchman was referred to as a term “which today generally means a town servant, bailiff, henchman, torturer, etc. care ".

The henchman's office (also called office) was a historical administrative unit in old Bavaria . The henchman's office was headed by the henchman or bailiff . The district court of the older order stood above the office .

Web links

Wiktionary: Minions  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

1. ^ Duden, 21st edition
   NSB universal dictionary of the New Swiss Library. 1967.
2. ^ Gerhard Truig: German dictionary. Jubiläumsausg., O. V., Gütersloh 1991, p. 1115.
   Hermann Paul: German dictionary. o. V., Halle a. S. 1908 (2), p. 445.
3. ↑ Minions. In: Jacob Grimm , Wilhelm Grimm (Hrsg.): German dictionary . tape 14 : R - skewness - (VIII). S. Hirzel, Leipzig 1893, Sp. 2584-2586 ( woerterbuchnetz.de ).
4. ↑ Duden-Red .: Duden (in six volumes), Dudenverlag, Mannheim 1980, p. 2251.
5. ↑ Minions. In: Johann Heinrich Zedler : Large complete universal lexicon of all sciences and arts . Volume 34, Leipzig 1742, column 1328.