The article studies the peculiarities of coining a new term "regulatory guillotine" in the modern Russian language. It describes the semantic, syntagmatic and pragmatic features of this term. It has been established that at the initial stage of its entry into the legal discourse, the term "regulatory guillotine" is characterized by high variation. Here are revealed its semantic, grammatical and graphic variants. Based on comparative analysis of various definitions of the term "regulatory guillotine", as well as on its syntagmatics in legal discourse, the author concludes it necessary to amend the definition of this term. A new term can be prospectively developed in close connection with the field knowledge and traditional use of the Russian language in texts of official communication. When describing the syntagmatics of the term in the academic legal discourse, the author points out a violation of the norms of lexical compatibility of the modern Russian literary language. The syntagmatics of the term "regulatory guillotine" in the Russian legal discourse reflects at the linguistic level the peculiarities of the correlation of the general and special consciousness of lawyers. It is also established that in the processes of functioning of the term "regulatory guillotine", quotation marks convey a complex mix of different kinds of information. The use of the term "regulatory guillotine" in the legal text with quotation marks and without quotation marks expresses a certain pragmatic meaning of the attitude of the subject of speech to the linguistic sign. Quotation marks implement both figurative and metalinguistic functions, and are also a means of adapting a metaphor-term to legal discourse.