derrickyoudaoicibaDictYouDict
derrick: [16] Around the end of the 16th century there was a famous Tyburn hangman called Derick. His name came to be used as a personification of hangmen in general, and subsequently as a metaphor for the ‘gallows’. Gradually, however, these macabre associations were lost, and by the 18th century derrick had progressed in meaning to ‘hoisting apparatus’.
derrick (n.)youdaoicibaDictYouDict
c. 1600, originally "hangman," then "a gallows," then "hoist, crane" (1727), from surname of a hangman at Tyburn gallows, London, c. 1606-1608, often referred to in contemporary theater. The name represents a late borrowing from the Low Countries (compare Dutch Diederik) of Old High German Theodric (see Dietrich).