GUILLOTINE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Guillotine

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/gˈɪlətˌin/ /gˈijətˌin/ Listen

Guillotine

noun

Closure imposed on the debate of specific sections of a bill. Synonym: closure by compartment.

Instrument of execution that consists of a weighted blade between two vertical poles; used for beheading people.

verb

(past & past part. guillotined; pres. part. guillotining)

Kill by cutting the head off with a guillotine.

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Etymology of 'Guillotine'

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"Guillotine" Quotes from Famous Books

... Brissotins' plots and the traitorous dealings of your Petions and Rolands. It is well if the federalists in arms do not march on Paris and massacre the patriot remnant whom famine is too slow in killing! There is no time to lose; we must tax the price of flour and guillotine every man who speculates in the food of the people, foments insurrection or palters with the foreigner. The Convention has set up an extraordinary tribunal to try conspirators. Patriots form the court; but will its members have energy enough to defend ...

— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France

... of the middle ages, but in the prize-ring fights and public executions by ax or guillotine, of the age that is just passing away. The thousands who perished for religious ideas by means of the Holy Roman Inquisition should not be overlooked by the Spanish writers who are so indignant that Montezuma and his priests sacrificed tens of thousands ...

— The Story of Extinct Civilizations of the West • Robert E. Anderson

... profile among the laughter and the flowers. 'What have you done, Monsieur le Comte,' he bursts out at last to his master, 'to deserve all these advantages?—I know. Vous vous etes donne la peine de naitre!' In that sentence one can hear—far off, but distinct—the flash and snap of the guillotine. To those happy listeners, though, no such sound was audible. Their speculations went another way. All was roseate, all was charming as the coaches dashed through the narrow streets of Paris, carrying their finely-powdered ladies and gentlemen, in silks and jewels, to the assemblies ...

— Landmarks in French Literature • G. Lytton Strachey

... distinguish himself. This was at the siege of a town called Toulon. All France was in upheaval at that time, for the people had revolted against their rulers and had overthrown their king and their nobility. Their king, Louis the Sixteenth perished on the public scaffold under the knife of the guillotine, and the French revolutionists had carried on such a reign of terror that all Europe was in turmoil and the hand of almost every other nation in the world was against the French. Even a number of the French themselves were opposed to their own government and had placed the town of Toulon ...

— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards

... years. The process used differs but little from that used at Stowmarket. The cotton used is of a good quality, it is sorted and picked over to remove foreign matters, &c., and is then cut up by a kind of guillotine into 2-inch lengths. It is then dried in the following manner. The cotton is placed upon an endless band, which conducts it to the stove, or drying closet, a chamber heated by means of hot air and steam traps to about 180 deg. F.; it falls upon a second endless ...

— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

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