guillotine

noun

1. (also, figuratively, historical)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.

   “For two-and-twenty years he [Joseph-Ignace Guillotin], unguillotined, shall hear nothing but guillotine, see nothing but guillotine; then dying, shall through long centuries wander, as it were, a disconsolate ghost, on the wrong side of Styx and Lethe; his name like to outlive [Julius] Cæsar’s.”

2. (broadly)A device or machine with a cutting blade.
3. (broadly)A device or machine with a cutting blade.
4. (British, broadly, informal)A parliamentary procedure for fixing the dates when various stages of discussion of a bill must end, to ensure that the enactment of the bill proceeds expeditiously.

   “The right hon. Gentleman is making a great stooshie about time in relation to this Bill, but was it not the case that, when the SNP [Scottish National Party] Scottish Government introduced their continuity Bill in the Scottish Parliament, they operated a ruthless guillotine to prevent proper scrutiny of it? 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.”

5. (US, broadly, informal)A legislative motion that debate be ended and a vote taken; a cloture.

verb

1. (also, figuratively, transitive)To use a guillotine (on someone or something).

   “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.”

2. (transitive)To use a guillotine (on someone or something).
3. (British, informal, transitive)To end discussion (about a parliamentary bill or part of one) by invoking a guillotine procedure.
4. (US, informal, transitive)To end (a legislative debate) by invoking cloture.