guillotine: Meaning and Definition of

guil•lo•tine

1. a device for beheading a person by means of a heavy blade that is dropped between two posts serving as guides: widely used during the French Revolution.
2. an instrument for surgically removing the tonsils.
3. any of various machines in which a vertical blade between two parallel uprights descends to cut or trim metal, stacks of paper, etc.

1. to behead by the guillotine.
2. to cut with or as if with a guillotine.