sickle
[sik-uh l]
- an implement for cutting grain, grass, etc., consisting of a curved, hooklike blade mounted in a short handle.
- (initial capital letter) Astronomy. a group of stars in the constellation Leo, likened to this implement in formation.
Show More
Origin of sickle
before 1000; Middle English sikel, Old English sicol; cognate with Dutch zikkel, German Sichel, all ≪ Latin secula, equivalent to sec(āre) to cut + -ula -ule
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for sickle
Contemporary Examples
The communist part is no joke, either—his business card features a Soviet-style hammer and sickle in red.
France's Communist party has undergone a revolution and dropped the hammer and sickle from its membership cards.
Search online for “Obama” and “communist” or “hammer and sickle” and hundreds of images pop up.
A new ad campaign paints the president as a communist on health care—complete with hammer and sickle.
But there was a twist—the hammer and sickle through the “c” in “Obama Care.”
Historical Examples
The American pioneers had only a sickle or a scythe with which to cut their grain.
The Age of InventionHolland Thompson
From behind the hills peeped the edge of the moon—a sickle of burnished copper.
The Sea-HawkRaphael Sabatini
The shoots are then topped off with a sickle, corn-cutter or similar tool.
Manual of American Grape-GrowingU. P. Hedrick
The wheat was ripe for the sickle, but there was not a man or boy to (p. 021)cut it.
Charles Carleton CoffinWilliam Elliot Griffis, D. D.
The scythe, the sickle, and the flail were the same as their forbears had used for centuries.
Union and DemocracyAllen Johnson
sickle
- an implement for cutting grass, corn, etc, having a curved blade and a short handle
Show More
Word Origin
Old English sicol, from Latin sēcula; related to secāre to cut
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for sickle
n.
Old English sicol, probably a West Germanic borrowing (cf. Middle Dutch sickele, Dutch sikkel, Old High German sihhila, German Sichel) from Vulgar Latin *sicila, from Latin secula "sickle" (cf. Italian segolo "hatchet"), from PIE root *sek- "to cut" (see section (n.)). Applied to curved or crescent-shaped things from mid-15c. Sickle-cell anemia is first recorded 1922.
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper
sickle
(sĭk′əl)- To cut with a sickle.
- To deform a red blood cell into an abnormal crescent shape.
- To assume an abnormal crescent shape. Used of red blood cells.
Show More
The American Heritage® Stedman's Medical Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.