henchman

• n. 亲信；追随者；（美）走狗；侍从

来自古英语hengest,种马，雄马，来自PIE*kenkest,马，进一步来自PIE*ekwo,马，词源同hippo,equine.即养马的人，马夫，引申词义心腹随从，亲信。词义演变比较marshal.

1. someone who assists in a plot

henchman

henchman: [14] Early spellings such as hengestman and henxstman suggest that this word is a compound of Old English hengest ‘stallion’ and man ‘man’. There are chronological difficulties, for hengest seems to have gone out of general use in the 13th century, and henchman is not recorded until the mid-14th century, but it seems highly likely nevertheless that the compound must originally have meant ‘horse servant, groom’.

The word hengest would no doubt have remained alive in popular consciousness as the name of the Jutish chieftain Hengist who conquered Kent in the 5th century with his brother Horsa; it is related to modern German hengst ‘stallion’, and goes back ultimately to a prehistoric Indo-European kənku-, which denoted ‘jump’. Henchman remained in use for ‘squire’ or ‘page’ until the 17th century, but then seems to have drifted out of use, and it was Sir Walter Scott who revived it in the early 19th century, in the sense ‘trusty right-hand man’.

henchman (n.)

mid-14c., hengestman, later henshman (mid-15c.) "high-ranking servant (usually of gentle birth), attendant upon a king, nobleman, etc.," originally "groom," probably from man (n.) + Old English hengest "horse, stallion, gelding," from Proto-Germanic *hangistas (cognates: Old Frisian hengst, Dutch hengest, German Hengst "stallion"), perhaps literally "best at springing," from PIE *kenku- (cognates: Greek kekiein "to gush forth;" Lithuanian sokti "to jump, dance;" Breton kazek "a mare," literally "that which belongs to a stallion").

Perhaps modeled on Old Norse compound hesta-maðr "horse-boy, groom." The word became obsolete in England but was retained in Scottish as "personal attendant of a Highland chief," in which sense Scott revived it in literary English from 1810. Sense of "obedient or unscrupulous follower" is first recorded 1839, probably based on a misunderstanding of the word as used by Scott.

The gang chief went everywhere accompanied by his henchman.

那流氓头子到什么地方都有手下的狗腿子跟着.

《现代英汉综合大词典》

He has never regarded you as a friend, only a henchman.

他根本没把你当朋友, 只不过把你当成了他的腿子.

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