Cleaver : nm Un cleaver is a couteau wide blade for to slice ou chop la meat.
Go through a chopping block: formerly, being guillotined.
The ax has fallen: the sentence has been pronounced.
The expression "Falling like a cleaver": Arriving suddenly, often by surprise, and with both disagreeable and irremediable consequences.
Originally, in the XNUMXth century, a cleaver was a knife with a broad blade used to slice or chop meat. But by extension, the ax also designated the blade of the charming machine that Mr. Joseph-Ignace Guillotin greatly contributed to bring up to date (but, strange as it may seem, with good intentions).
Suffice to say that for someone with their head stuck in the guillotine, the blade, when released, suddenly hits his neck, by surprise, and produces effects that are certainly unpleasant, but above all irremediable.
It took no longer for the metaphor to appear in situations that were otherwise less critical, but generally poorly experienced by those directly concerned.