Meanings
- historicalslanguncountableForced deportation to a penal colony, especially as a punishment during the French Revolution.
It disposed of political opponents mainly through the ‘dry guillotine’ of deportation rather than by physical liquidation.
2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 5171 more example
Nor could they forget the 200-odd priests massacred in the Paris prisons in September 1792, [...] or the 118 who never came back from the dry guillotine that was French Guiana.
1989, Ralph Gibson, A Social History of French Catholicism, Routledge, page 52
Origin
As an alternative (and bloodless) punishment to the guillotine.
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
dry guillotine. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dry%20guillotine
“dry guillotine.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dry%20guillotine. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “dry guillotine,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/dry%20guillotine.
Source: dry guillotine on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.