1.  hatchet man(n = noun.person) iceman - a professional killer;

2.  hatchet man(n = noun.person) enforcer - one whose job it is to execute unpleasant tasks for a superior;

1.  A person hired to murder or physically attack another; a hit man. [PJC]

2.  A person who deliberately tries to ruin the reputation of another, often unscrupulously, by slander or other malicious communication, often with a political motive, and sometimes for pay. [PJC]

N  killing, homicide, manslaughter, murder, assassination, trucidation, iccusion, effusion of blood, blood, blood shed, gore, slaughter, carnage, butchery, battue, massacre, fusillade, noyade, thuggery, Thuggism, deathblow, finishing stroke, coup de grace, quietus, execution, judicial murder, martyrdom, butcher, slayer, murderer, Cain, assassin, terrorist, cutthroat, garroter, bravo, Thug, Moloch, matador, sabreur, guet-a-pens, gallows, executioner, man-eater, apache, hatchet man, highbinder, regicide, parricide, matricide, fratricide, infanticide, feticide, foeticide, uxoricide, vaticide, suicide, felo de se, hara-kiri, suttee, Juggernath, immolation, auto da fe, holocaust, suffocation, strangulation, garrote, hanging, lapidation, deadly weapon, Aceldama, slaughtering, phthisozoics, sport, sporting, the chase, venery, hunting, coursing, shooting, fishing, pig- sticking, sportsman, huntsman, fisherman, hunter, Nimrod, slaughterhouse, meat packing plant, shambles, abattoir, fatal accident, violent death, casualty, killing, murderous, slaughterous, sanguinary, sanguinolent, blood stained, blood thirsty, homicidal, red handed, bloody, bloody minded, ensanguined, gory, thuggish, mortal, fatal, lethal, dead, deadly, mortiferous, lethiferous, unhealthy internecine, suicidal, sporting, piscatorial, piscatory, in at the death, assassination has never changed the history of the.