Guillotine

Quick meaning: Guillotine is a noun meaning A device or machine with a cutting blade.

Meaning

A device or machine with a cutting blade.

More Meanings

1. A legislative motion that debate be ended and a vote taken; a cloture.
2. To use a guillotine (on someone or something).
3. To end discussion (about a parliamentary bill or part of one) by invoking a guillotine procedure.
4. To end (a legislative debate) by invoking cloture.
5. A parliamentary procedure for fixing the dates when various stages of discussion of a bill must end, to ensure that the enactment of the bill proceeds expeditiously.
6. (historical, also figuratively) A machine used for the application of capital punishment by decapitation, consisting of a tall upright frame from which is suspended a heavy diagonal-edged blade which is dropped onto the neck of the person to be executed; also, execution using this machine.

Example Sentences

For two-and-twenty years he [Joseph-Ignace Guillotin], unguillotined, shall hear nothing but guillotine, see nothing but guillotine; then dying, shall through long centuries wander, as it were, a disconsolate ghost, on the wrong side of Styx and Lethe; his name like to outlive [Julius] Cæsar’s.

The right hon. Gentleman is making a great stooshie about time in relation to this Bill, but was it not the case that, when the SNP [Scottish National Party] Scottish Government introduced their continuity Bill in the Scottish Parliament, they operated a ruthless guillotine to prevent proper scrutiny of it? That is the case; they ran a guillotine on that Bill, and there was a very limited amount of time allowed for debate and scrutiny, yet he complains about that happening here.

Word Forms

• guillotines
• guillotining
• guillotined

Related Words

Related dictionary entries include sash, guillotinement, guillotinism, headsman, gibbet, garrotte.

Related Dictionary Tools