guillotine

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A device consisting of a heavy blade held aloft between upright guides and dropped to behead the victim below.
2. n. An instrument, such as a paper cutter, similar in action to a guillotine.
3. v. To behead with a guillotine.
4. v. To cut with or as if with a guillotine.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A machine used in France for beheading condemned persons by the action of a heavily weighted, oblique-edged knife falling between two grooved posts upon the neck of the victim, whose head protrudes through a circular hole in a divided plank. Similar devices had been used in the middle ages. (See maiden.) The form adopted by the French government in March, 1792, was contrived, with the approval of the Assembly, by a Dr. Louis, from whom it was at first called louisette; but it afterward was named from Dr. J. I. Guillotin, who had proposed in the National Assembly in 1789 the substitution of some more humane method for the slow and cruel modes of execution then in use, but without indicating any particular machine.
2. n. One of several machines similar in principle to the above, much used for cutting paper, straw, etc. Also called guillotine cutter.
3. n. In surgery, an instrument for cutting the tonsils.
4. To behead by the guillotine.
5. n. A machine for breaking iron by means of a falling weight.

Wiktionary

1. n. 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.
2. n. A device used for cutting stacks of paper to straight edges, usually by means of a hinged blade attached to a flat platform.
3. n. A cloture; a motion that debate be ended and a vote taken.
4. v. transitive To execute, cut or cut short (a person, a stack of paper or a debate) by use of a guillotine.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A machine for beheading a person by one stroke of a heavy ax or blade, which slides in vertical guides, is raised by a cord, and let fall upon the neck of the victim.
2. n. Any machine or instrument for cutting or shearing, resembling in its action a guillotine.
3. v. To behead with the guillotine.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. closure imposed on the debate of specific sections of a bill
2. n. instrument of execution that consists of a weighted blade between two vertical poles; used for beheading people
3. v. kill by cutting the head off with a guillotine