From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishguillotineguil‧lo‧tine1 /ˈɡɪlətiːn/ noun [countable] 1 SCa piece of equipment used to cut off the heads of criminals, especially in France in the past2 TCN British English a piece of equipment used to cut large sheets of paper3 British EnglishPGP the setting of a time limit on a discussion in the British Parliament Opposition leaders accused the government of introducing a guillotine motion to stifle debate.
Examples from the Corpus
guillotine• Its words function like a guillotine.• In fact, they wanted an even more severe limitation on politicians, but Willie Brown had the only guillotine.• Provincial guillotines and scaffolds were dismantled and those not exhibited in museums were broken up and scrapped.• Only five clauses of the Football Spectators Bill had been considered before the guillotine was introduced.• Feeley looked like a man being led to the guillotine.• Where the guillotine improved on the Halifax design was the inbuilt facility to position the victim accurately and quickly in the machine.guillotineguillotine2 verb [transitive] 1 SCLto cut off someone’s head using a guillotine2 British EnglishPGP to limit the period of time allowed for the discussion of a possible new law in the British Parliament→ See Verb tableOrigin guillotine1 (1700-1800) French from Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), French doctor who invented it 