carnifex

English

Etymology

From Latin carnifex (“butcher”).

Noun

carnifex (plural carnifexes or carnifices)

1. (now rare, historical) An executioner.
   • 1831, Walter Scott, Fortunes of Nigel:

     “[T]he carnifex, or executioner there, is brandishing his gulley ower near the King's face, seeing he is within reach of his weapon.”

   • 1980, Gene Wolfe, chapter XIII, in The Shadow of the Torturer (The Book of the New Sun; 1), New York: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 123:

     ‘Lesser places have no more than a carnifex, who takes life and performs such excruciations as the judicators there decree.’

   • 2013, Geoffrey Hill, Broken Hierarchies: Poems 1952–2012, Oxford University Press, →OCLC, page 535:

     Vorónezh: Ovid thrusts abruptly wide / the ice-locked shutters, discommodes his lyre / to Caesar's harbingers. Interrogation, / whatever is most feared. Truth's fatal vogue, / sad carnifex, self-styled of blood and wax.

Latin

Alternative forms

• carnufex

Etymology

From carō (“flesh”) +‎ -fex (“maker”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈkar.ni.feks/, [ˈkärnɪfɛks̠]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈkar.ni.feks/, [ˈkärnifeks]

Noun

carnifex m (genitive carnificis); third declension

1. butcher, knacker (one who slaughters and renders worn-out livestock)

   Synonyms: laniātor, lanius, laniō, macellārius

2. executioner, hangman
3. tormenter, murderer
4. scoundrel, villain

Declension

Third-declension noun.

	singular	plural
nominative	carnifex	carnificēs
genitive	carnificis	carnificum
dative	carnificī	carnificibus
accusative	carnificem	carnificēs
ablative	carnifice	carnificibus
vocative	carnifex	carnificēs

Derived terms

• carnificīna
• carnificō

Descendants

• → English: carnifex
• → Italian: carnefice
• → Portuguese: carnífice
• → Spanish: carnífice

Further reading

• “carnifex”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “carnifex”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• carnifex in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• carnifex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “carnifex”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin