sickle
- 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.
Origin of sickle
Related Words for sickle
bayonet, dagger, blade, sword, skewer, machete, sickle, cutter, scalpel, knife, trim, shear, shave, slice, rip, slash, carve, curtail, divide, lanceExamples from the Web for sickle
Contemporary Examples of sickle
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 of sickle
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
Word Origin for sickle
Word Origin and History for sickle
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.
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.