scythe

• (archaic): sithe, sythe
• (Exmoor dial.): zive

From Middle English sythe, sithe, from Old English sīþe, siðe, sigði (“sickle”), probably from Proto-Germanic *sagisnō (“sickle”). Cognates within the Germanic family are West Frisian seine (“scythe”), Dutch zicht (“sickle”), German Sense (“scythe”). Related to saw (which see).

The silent c crept in early 15^thc. owing to pseudoetymological association with Mediaeval Latin scissor ("tailor, carver"), from Latin scindere (“to cut, rend, split”).

The verb, which was first used in the intransitive sense, is from the noun.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪð/, (some accents) IPA^(key): /ˈsaɪθ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪð, -aɪθ

scythe (plural scythes)

1. An instrument for mowing grass, grain, etc. by hand, composed of a long, curving blade with a sharp concave edge, fastened to a long handle called a snath. [before 10^th c.]
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, Sonnet 12:

     And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence

     Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.

2. (historical) A scythe-shaped blade attached to ancient war chariots.
3. (cartomancy) The tenth Lenormand card.

• Scythe on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Scythe in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

scythe (third-person singular simple present scythes, present participle scything, simple past and past participle scythed)

1. (intransitive) To use a scythe. [from 1570s]
2. (transitive) To cut with a scythe. [from 1570s]
3. (transitive) To cut off as with a scythe; to mow. [from 1590s]
4. (intransitive, figuratively) To attack or injure as if cutting.
   • 2011, Catherine Sampson, The Pool of Unease

     The boy began to keen, and the high-pitched noise scythed through Song's head.

• scyther

• chesty