[f. TASK sb. + MASTER sb.1] One whose office is to allot tasks and see to their performance; an overseer; a middleman; spec. in plastering (see quot. 1892); also fig. one who allots a duty, or imposes a heavy burden or labor.
1530. Tindale, Exod. i. 11. And he [Pharao] sette taskemasters ouer them. Ibid., 14. And the officers of the children of Israel which Pharaos taskmasters had sett ouer them, were beaten.
1588. L. Humphrey, Romish Hydra, Ded. For our gould, to receiue brasse: For our siluer, iron: and for this gouernement of peace, the tyranny of Exactours and Taskmasters?
1631. Milton, Sonn., ‘How soon hath Time.’ All is, if I have grace to use it so, As ever in my great task Masters eye.
1797. Godwin, Enquirer, I. viii. 67. There is no equality between me and my Task-master.
1837. N. P. Rogers, Addr. Anti-Slavery Soc., 25 Dec., 8–9. Perhaps, as we observe its [the whip’s] influence in a dexterous hand, over the restive horse, we can conceive something of its terrors for the naked human form, in the hand of a veteran and accomplished task-master at the South.
1869. W. P. Mackay, Grace & Truth (1875), 212. The task-master’s whip held over his head.
1892. Labour Commission, Gloss., Taskmaster, one who takes work from the original contractor in the plastering industry, and sets a given quantity of work to be done in a certain time.
1902. Marguerite Cunliffe-Owen, A Doffed Coronet, vii. 281. Illness is a harsh taskmaster.
Hence Taskmastership, the office or position of a taskmaster.
1815. Zeluca, I. 70. All the arts, and all the sciences … all conned in submission to taskmastership.
1898. Daily News, 12 Nov., 3/6. Having … passed through both the terrible ordeal of a lower boy’s life at Eton and … having enjoyed the delights of cruel taskmastership.
