sickle

What it means

1. agricultureAn implement having a semicircular blade and short handle, used for cutting long grass and cereal crops.

   Coordinate term: scythe

   2 more examples

   Lou's not Times foole, though roſie lips and cheeks VVithin his bending ſickles compaſſe come, Loue alters not with his breefe houres and vveekes, But beares it out euen to the edge of doome: If this be error and vpon me proued, I neuer vvrit, nor no man euer loued.

   1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 116”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC, signature H, recto

   Oft did the harveſt to their ſickle yield, Their furrow oft the ſtubborn glebe has broke; How jocund did they drive their team afield! How bow’d the woods beneath their ſturdy ſtroke!

   1750 June 12 (date written; published 1751), T[homas] Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, in Designs by Mr. R[ichard] Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], published 1753, →OCLC, page 81

   Synonyms: reap hook, reaping hook

2. Anything resembling a sickle, especially:
   1. A sickle feather, any of the sickle-shaped rear feathers of the domestic cock.
   2. poeticThe crescent moon.

      Then, ere the silver sickle of that month Became her golden shield, I stole from court With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived.

      1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Part 1”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC

In a sentence

Coordinate term: scythe

Where it comes from

1. Latinsēcula“sickle”
2. Proto-West Germanic*sikilu
3. Old Englishsicol
4. Middle Englishsikel
5. Englishsickle

From Middle English sikel (also assibilated in sichel), from Old English sicol, siċel, from Proto-West Germanic *sikilu, itself borrowed from Latin sēcula (“sickle”) or sīcīlis (“sickle”). Cognate with Dutch sikkel, German Sichel. Remotely related with English scythe and saw.

First known use: 1922