guillotine

tr.v. guil·lo·tined, guil·lo·tin·ing, guil·lo·tines

[French, after Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738-1814), French physician.]

Word History: Ironically, the guillotine—the most notable symbol of the excesses of the French Revolution—was named for a humanitarian physician, Joseph Ignace Guillotin. On October 10, 1789, in a speech given before the French National Constituent Assembly (the legislature that governed France at the time), Guillotin recommended that executions be performed with a beheading device rather than by hanging, the method traditionally used for commoners, or by beheading with the sword, the method traditionally reserved for the nobility. Guillotin 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. 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.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

n

vb (tr)

[C18: from French, named after Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738–1814), French physician, who advocated its use in 1789]

ˌguilloˈtiner n

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

art at guild

1. a device for beheading a person, consisting of a heavy blade that drops between two posts serving to guide its fall.

2. any of various machines or instruments that cut powerfully and quickly, esp. one with a blade that drops vertically, as for trimming metal, paper, etc.

3. to behead by the guillotine.

4. to cut with or as if with a guillotine.

[1785–95; < French, after J. I. Guillotin (1738–1814), French physician who urged its use]

Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.

Collins English Verb Tables © HarperCollins Publishers 2011

An execution machine named for its inventor and first used in April 1792. Also called “the national razor.”

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