sickle

Meaning

Noun

1. An implement having a semicircular blade and short handle, used for cutting long grass and cereal crops.
2. Any of the sickle-shaped middle feathers of the domestic cock.

Verb

1. To cut with a sickle.
2. To deform (as with a red blood cell) into an abnormal crescent shape.
3. Of red blood cells: to assume an abnormal crescent shape.

Adj

Shaped like the blade of a sickle; crescent-shaped.

Synonyms

scythe

reaping hook

reaping-hook

crescent

hook

🪝

small knife

machete

reap hook

scimitar

instrument for mowing

sword

billhook

bill-hook

pruning-knife

cutterbar

reaping instrument

falx

cutting knife

knife bar

apparatus cutting

bill

scythe-blade

colter

cut

cutlass

ghost

👻

knife

🔪

oppress

pare

reaping

shears

Hyphenated as

sic‧kle

Pronounced as (IPA)

/ˈsɪkl̩/

Etymology

Inherited from Middle English: sikel

Inherited from Old English: sicol

Cognate with Dutch: sikkel

Cognate with German: Sichel

In summary

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.