a device for beheading a person by means of a heavy blade that is dropped between two posts serving as guides: widely used during the French Revolution.
2.
an instrument for surgically removing the tonsils.
3.
any of various machines in which a vertical blade between two parallel uprights descends to cut or trim metal, stacks of paper, etc.
–verb (used with object)
4.
to behead by the guillotine.
5.
to cut with or as if with a guillotine.
[Origin: 1785–95; named after J. I. Guillotin (1738–1814), French physician who urged its use]
[French, after Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814), French physician.]
Word History: "At half past 12 the guillotine severed her head from her body." So reads the statement containing the first recorded use of guillotine in English, found in the Annual Register of 1793. Ironically, the guillotine, which became the most notable symbol of the excesses of the French Revolution, was named for a humanitarian physician, Joseph Ignace Guillotin. Guillotin, a member of the French Constituent Assembly, recommended in a speech to that body on October 10, 1789, that executions be performed by a beheading device rather than by hanging, the method used for commoners, or by the sword, reserved for the nobility. He argued that beheading by machine was quicker and less painful than the work of the rope and the sword. In 1791 the Assembly did indeed adopt beheading by machine as the state's preferred method of execution. A beheading device designed by Dr. Antoine Louis, secretary of the College of Surgeons, was first used on April 25, 1792, to execute a highwayman named Pelletier or Peletier. The device was called a louisette or louison after its inventor's name, but because of Guillotin's famous speech, his name became irrevocably associated with the machine. After Guillotin's death in 1814, his children tried unsuccessfully to get the device's name changed. When their efforts failed, they were allowed to change their name instead.
1793, in allusion to Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), Fr. physician, who as deputy to the National Assembly (1789) proposed, for humanitarian and efficiency reasons, that capital punishment be carried out by beheading quickly and cleanly on a machine, which was built in 1791 and first used the next year. The verb is first attested 1794.
A machine designed for beheading people quickly and with minimal pain. The guillotine, which used a large falling knife blade, was devised by a physician, Joseph Guillotin, during the French Revolution and was used as the official method of execution in France until the twentieth century.
Guil"lo*tine`\ (g[i^]l"l[-o]*t[=e]n`), n. [F., from Guillotin, a French physician, who proposed, in the Constituent Assembly of 1789, to abolish decapitation with the ax or sword. The instrument was invented by Dr. Antoine Louis, and was called at first Louison or Louisette. Similar machines, however, were known earlier.]1. A machine for beheading a person by one stroke of a heavy ax or blade, which slides in vertical guides, is raised by a cord, and let fall upon the neck of the victim. 2. Any machine or instrument for cutting or shearing, resembling in its action a guillotine.
Guil"lo*tine`\ (g[i^]l`l[-o]*t[=e]n"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Guillotined; p. pr. & vb. n. Guillotining.] [Cf. F. guillotiner.] To behead with the guillotine.
![[P]](http://cache.lexico.com/g/d/premium_mh.gif){kind=small}
Audio Help [gil-uh-teen, gee-uh-; esp. for v. gil-uh-teen, gee-uh-] Pronunciation Key noun, verb, -tined, -tin·ing. 
