Guillotine
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia · John Bouvier; revised by Francis Rawle · 1914
Bouvier's Law Dictionary and Concise Encyclopedia
An apparatus for beheading criminals with a single blow, used in some countries, as France and Greece, for capital punishment. A form of it was in use in the middle ages, but, being improved by Dr. Guillotin at the time of the French Revolution, it received its present name. Cent. Diet.