GUILLOTINE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • 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

... just one letter behind. He never understood this. Even when he laid his head under the guillotine, he felt that he was a much-abused man who had received a most unwarrantable treatment at the hands of people whom he had loved to the best ...

— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon

... this young lad saw terrible sights of men hung from lamp-posts; heard the grisly cry, "A la lanterne! a la lanterne!" and was even himself seized by some of the mob, though he happily contrived, in the confusion, to slip away. In Marseilles, too, he first saw the guillotine; it was carried about the streets in procession whilst the populace yelled out the "Marseillaise Hymn." Later on in the Revolution he was seized, as an Englishman, and imprisoned with a number of others at Abbeville; but, escaping from there, he made a wonderful journey through ...

— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood

... trade about the Place; Where proudly reigns La Guillotine; I pile my basket up with bloom, With mosses soft and green. This morning, not an hour ago, I stood beside a Tricoteuse; And saw the little fair head fall Off the little Wooden Shoes. Vogue la galere! By Sanson's told, Into his ...

— Old Spookses' Pass • Isabella Valancy Crawford

... it will be death. We know that well enough; but the death of a soldier is better than that of thieves—the volley of a platoon rather than the guillotine." ...

— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... at least who did not waver in his faith that the movement was a giant's step on the path of man towards ultimate felicity, however far he had still to travel. Condorcet, one of the younger Encyclopaedists, spent the last months of his life, under the menace of the guillotine, in projecting ...

— The Idea of Progress - An Inquiry Into Its Origin And Growth • J. B. Bury

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