sickle
/ˈsɪkl̩/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms sickles sickling sickled
- noun (agriculture) An implement having a semicircular blade and short handle, used for cutting long grass and cereal crops.
- noun A sickle feather, any of the sickle-shaped rear feathers of the domestic cock.
- noun (poetic) The crescent moon.
- verb (agriculture, transitive, rare) To cut with a sickle.
- verb (pathology, intransitive) Of red blood cells: to assume an abnormal crescent shape.
- verb (pathology, transitive) To deform (as with a red blood cell) into an abnormal crescent shape, to cause to sickle.
- proper noun A surname from German.
Synonyms
Etymology
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.
Probably an Americanized form of German Sickel.
Webster’s 1913
- noun A reaping instrument consisting of a steel blade curved into the form of a hook, and having a handle fitted on a tang. The sickle has one side of the blade notched, so as always to sharpen with a serrated edge. Cf. Reaping hook, under Reap.
- noun A group of stars in the constellation Leo. See Illust. of Leo.
Etymology [OE. sikel, AS. sicol; akin to D. sikkel, G. sichel, OHG. sihhila, Dan. segel, segl, L. secula, fr. secare to cut; or perhaps from L. secula. See Saw a cutting instrument.]
Sources: Wiktionary · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “sickle”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details