Louis XVI was beheaded in 1793.
Mary, Queen of Scots, was beheaded for plotting against Queen Elizabeth.
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According to Open Doors, the continent’s most populous nation saw the worst persecution in Africa in 2025, with ‘non-stop stories of deadly attacks and kidnappings’ across Nigeria’s north and Middle Belt — a litany of villages torched, citizens raped, abducted, shot and beheaded.—Paul Tilsley, FOXNews.com, 28 Dec. 2025 On subsequent songs, Ninajirachi sings about the destruction of her innocence through sexting, and the trauma of coming across a beheading video.—Spencer Kornhaber, The Atlantic, 12 Dec. 2025 But the week of Thanksgiving, the couple was shocked when one of their 20 bison was shot, killed and beheaded on the family’s ranch near County Road 301 and FM 3108, south of Lindsay.—Shambhavi Rimal, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 4 Dec. 2025 At the same time, the barrage of vitriol unleashed by China castigating Takaichi as a warmongering militarist includes a reprehensible threat by the Chinese consul-general in Osaka about beheading Takaichi.—Jeff Kingston, Time, 30 Nov. 2025 On September 7, ISIS began a strident offensive again, hitting its former stronghold of Mocimboa da Praia, beheading dozens of mostly Christian men over the course of several weeks, and triggering the flight of tens of thousands of residents.—Nick Paton Walsh, CNN Money, 21 Nov. 2025 But then another victim was found — a 26-year-old Yosemite naturalist named Joie Ruth Armstrong, who was found beheaded.—Virginia Chamlee, PEOPLE, 15 Nov. 2025 All of the Rats get gruesomely beheaded by Leo Bonhart.—Jordan Moreau, Variety, 31 Oct. 2025 Walt Disney Imagineering updated the storyline of Black Widow Bride Constance Hatchway earlier this year by turning her from an axe murderer who beheads her wealthy husbands into a more mournful figure overwhelmed by the dread of lost love.—Brady MacDonald, Oc Register, 13 Oct. 2025
Word History
First Known Use
before the 12th century, in the meaning defined above
Time Traveler
The first known use of behead was
before the 12th century
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