guillotine: [18] Joseph Ignace Guillotin (1738– 1814), a French doctor, did not invent the device named after him – such contraptions had been around for some time – but it was he who saw the advantages, in terms of speed and efficiency, of an easily resettable blade for beheading in a time of peak demand, and he recommended it to the Revolutionary authorities. The term used for it, first recorded in English in 1793, is a fitting memorial to him. Its application to the limitation of discussion in a legislature dates from the 1890s.
guillotine (n.)
"The name of the machine in which the axe descends in grooves from a considerable height so that the stroke is certain and the head instantly severed from the body." ["Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure," January 1793], 1791, from French guillotine, named in recognition of French physician Joseph Guillotin (1738-1814), who as deputy to the National Assembly (1789) proposed, for humanitarian and efficiency reasons, that capital punishment be carried out by beheading quickly and cleanly on a machine, which was built in 1791 and first used the next year. Similar devices were used in the Middle Ages. The verb is first attested 1794. Related: Guillotined; guillotining.
实用例句
1. to guillotine a bill
限制议案的辩论时间
来自《权威词典》
2. Not many French people are in favour of using the guillotine.
没有多少法国人赞成使用断头台.
来自《简明英汉词典》
3. One after the other Danton, Robespierre and the rest went to the guillotine.
丹东、罗伯斯比尔以及其他人被逐一送上了断头台。
来自柯林斯例句
4. But I wouldn't want to go to the guillotine.
但我不想去断头台.
来自超越目标英语 第4册
5. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine.
