decapitate

verb

1. (transitive)To remove the head of.

   “One machine in which Mr. Taylor takes special pride is a salmon canner, which engulfs a whole salmon, decapitates and decaudates it, skins it, blows out its viscera, cuts it into pieces, deposits them in the can, sterilizes them […]”

   “The hippie wasn't wearing any shoes. January in Boston and he's in sandals, standing there screaming, “Look what she did! Look what the crazy fucking bitch did!” --like it was my pleasure to risk decapitating myself by slamming through the hippiemobile.”

   “Employee #1 was in the center of the runway, working alone approximately 300 feet from the end that led to the plane loading area and hangars. A pilot flying an airplane, Schweizer Aircraft Corporation Model G-164 B, approached the airstrip from the opposite end and landed. As the pilot taxied the plane toward the hangar, the plane's propeller struck Employee #1 in the head and decapitated him.”

2. (figuratively, transitive)To oust or destroy the leadership or ruling body of (a government etc.).

   “The Russian goal at the start of the invasion had been to kill or capture Zelensky and decapitate his government.”

   “The assassination of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was the culmination of decades of painstaking intelligence gathering by Israeli secret services, […] which culminated in a single concentrated burst of lethal violence to decapitate the Iranian regime, according to experts, veteran spies and officials in Israel and the US.”