How to use guillotine in a sentence

10 example sentences · noun, verb

Guillotine means 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: “Many counterrevolutionaries were guillotined during the French Revolution.”

Examples of guillotine by meaning

nounA parliamentary procedure for fixing the dates when various stages of discussion of a bill must end, to ensure that the...

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.2019 October 22, Stephen Kerr, Member of Parliament for Stirling, “Second Reading of the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Bill”, in...

verbTo execute (someone) with a guillotine.

Many counterrevolutionaries were guillotined during the French Revolution.
Besides providing online courses to their own (generally fee-paying) students, universities have felt obliged to join the MOOC revolution to avoid being guillotined by it.2013 July 20, “The attack of the MOOCs”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845, archived from the original on 17 Jul 2020

More sentences with guillotine

The guillotine was meant to humanize beheadings, but allowed the French Revolution to execute people at an industrial rate.From the entry beheading
Tall, black, menacing, it was indisputably what a guillotine should be.2008 December 30, Philip Dodd, What's in a Name?: From Joseph P. Frisbie to Roy Jacuzzi, How Everyday Items Were Named for Extraor dinary…. From the entry witch's bridle
It disposed of political opponents mainly through the ‘dry guillotine’ of deportation rather than by physical liquidation.2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 517. From the entry dry guillotine
A man is guillotined or hanged; his leg is amputated; he is trepanned.1904 June, “Verbs Needed”, in A. H. McQuilkin, editor, The Inland Printer: The Leading Trade Journal of the World in the Printing and…. From the entry radium
The fallen guillotine blade is replaced with a call to awareness that, as we have seen, divagates from Szpiner's "Ayez pitié des enfants."2010, Noah McLaughlin, French War Films and National Identity, page 51. From the entry divagate
The same spirit that enabled Ridley, Latimer and a score of others to face boldly and courageously the stake, the guillotine, and the burning pile.1902, A. Gracie, “The Outlook in Ho-nan”, in China's Millions, China Inland Mission, page 86. From the entry Ho-nan
A temple abbot who used a DIY guillotine to behead himself in hope of attaining enlightenment might have misinterpreted some things along the way, Thailand’s religious authorities said yesterday.2021 April 19, “Thai monk who beheaded himself with guillotine to reach nirvana may have been misguided: Buddhist authority”, in Coconuts…. From the entry DIY

Meaning of guillotine

noun 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.
noun A device used for cutting the pages of books, stacks of paper, etc., to straight edges, usually by means of a hinged or sliding blade attached to a flat platform.
noun An instrument with a sliding blade for cutting the tonsils, uvula, or other body parts.

Full definition of guillotine

Questions about guillotine in a sentence

How do you use guillotine in a sentence?: Guillotine is used as a noun and verb. For example: “Many counterrevolutionaries were guillotined during the French Revolution.”
What is a short sentence with guillotine?: “Many counterrevolutionaries were guillotined during the French Revolution.”
What does guillotine mean?: Guillotine means 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.

Adapted from Wiktionary: guillotine (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Cite this page: “How to use guillotine in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/guillotine. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.