Definition of Guilotine

Definition of Guilotine

Guillotine, a beheading-machine invented by a Dr. Guillotin, and recommended by him to the National Convention, which adopted it; "with my machine, Messieurs, I whisk off your head in a twinkling, and you have no pain;" it was anticipated by the Maiden in Scotland.

- Wikipedia

Guil"lo*tine` (g&ibreve;l"l&osl;*tēn`), 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&ibreve;l`l&osl;*tēn"), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Guillotined (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Guillotining.] [Cf. F. guillotiner.] To behead with the guillotine.

- Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

GUILLOTINE, n. A machine which makes a Frenchman shrug his shoulders
with good reason.
In his great work on Divergent Lines of Racial Evolution, the
learned Professor Brayfugle argues from the prevalence of this gesture
-- the shrug -- among Frenchmen, that they are descended from turtles
and it is simply a survival of the habit of retracing the head inside
the shell. It is with reluctance that I differ with so eminent an
authority, but in my judgment (as more elaborately set forth and
enforced in my work entitled Hereditary Emotions -- lib. II, c. XI)
the shrug is a poor foundation upon which to build so important a
theory, for previously to the Revolution the gesture was unknown. I
have not a doubt that it is directly referable to the terror inspired
by the guillotine during the period of that instrument's activity.

- 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue

A machine used for the application of capital punishment by decapitation, consisting of a tall upright frame from which is suspended a heavy triangular blade.
A machine used for cutting stacks of paper to straight edges, usually by means of a hinged blade attached to a flat platform.

- The Nuttall Encyclopedia

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