Adjacent Words

hatchet man definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a professional killer [syn: hatchet man, iceman]
2: one whose job it is to execute unpleasant tasks for a superior [syn: hatchet man, enforcer]

Merriam Webster's

noun Date: 1880 1. one hired for murder, coercion, or attack 2. a. a writer specializing in invective b. a person hired to perform underhanded or unscrupulous tasks (as ruin reputations)

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(hatchet men) You can refer to someone who makes changes in an organization by getting rid of lots of people as a hatchet man, especially if you think they do so in an unnecessarily harsh way. (INFORMAL) N-COUNT [disapproval]

Moby Thesaurus

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