1 [sing.] a machine, originally from France, for cutting people's heads off. It has a heavy blade that slides down a wooden frame:
He was sent to the guillotine in January 1793.
2 (BrE) (AmE paper cutter) [C] a device with a long blade for cutting paper
3 [sing.] (BrE, politics) the setting of a time limit on a debate in Parliament
verb [VN]
1 to kill sb by cutting off their head with a guillotine:
Thousands of aristocrats were guillotined during the French Revolution.
2 (BrE) to cut paper using a guillotine
3 (BrE, politics) to limit the amount of time spent discussing a new law in Parliament:
to guillotine a bill / motion
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
Where does this definition of guillotine come from?
This entry for guillotine is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is guillotine a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, guillotine is tagged as noun.
Does guillotine appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — guillotine appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.