murderer

American  

[mur-der-er] / ˈmɜr dər ər /

noun

• murderers
  plural

1. a person who commits murder.

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idioms

1. murderers' row,

   1. the row of cells in a prison where murderers and other violent or hard-core criminals are held.

   2. Baseball. a succession of heavy hitters scheduled to bat one after the other.

   3. any group of notorious or important people.

      a murderers' row of talent;

      a murderers' row of philosophers.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• self-murderer
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• murderers
  plural

Etymology

Origin of murderer

1300–50; Middle English mortherer, mord ( e ) rer; see murder, -er ¹

Explanation

If you’re looking for a roommate and someone writes murderer under “occupation,” you should definitely keep looking. A murderer is a person who kills deliberately and without justification. In some instances, killing a person is considered a just or valid action — in a war, a soldier who kills another soldier is not considered to be a murderer, and people who kill in self-defense, to save themselves, are also not murderers. Killing out of anger or for money or revenge is murder, and anyone who does it is a murderer. Charles Manson is in jail for being a murderer. The Old English root of murderer is morðor, "unlawful killing."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

murderer murderers

A group of other Russian and German prisoners were also freed, in exchange for Western countries releasing several Russian assets, including convicted murderer Vadim Krasikov.

From Barron's ● Sep. 30, 2026

He said the public were "in an outrageous position of having a convicted murderer roam our streets as a consequence of a catastrophic series of errors".

From BBC ● Sep. 21, 2026

Nicolas Winding Refn directs this inscrutable yet mesmerizing thriller that follows the converging stories of an actress, an American G.I., and a mysterious murderer called the Leather Man.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026

At night, Elle shrugs on her father’s heavy black coat and slips into a reverie about a myth in which a grief-stricken murderer called the Leather Man searches for his lost daughter.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026

"If Crow is innocent," Theo said, "that means the murderer is still here in this room."

From "The Westing Game" by Ellen Raskin

Convicted murderers and prisoners on orders for lifelong restriction would be excluded from the changes.

From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026

Either way, reluctance to associate either Salinger or his most indelible creation with crazed murderers meant keeping their own wounds at arms’ length.

From Salon ● Jul. 25, 2026

During his time on the police beat and as a freelancer, Harris developed a fascination with crime and close proximity to its cast of characters from suspected murderers to homicide detectives.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 2, 2026

Outside the United Nations, around 200 demonstrators denounced Iran's deadly protest crackdown, holding placards reading: "No negotiations with murderers".

From Barron's ● Feb. 17, 2026

The crime decline in New York surely happened the same way It wasn’t that some huge percentage of would- be murderers suddenly sat up in 1993 and decided not to commit any more crimes.

From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

Related Words

• assassin
• executioner