sickle

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.

• IPA^(key): /ˈsɪkl̩/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪkəl
• Hyphenation: sic‧kle

sickle (plural sickles)

2. (agriculture) An implement having a semicircular blade and short handle, used for cutting long grass and cereal crops.

   Synonyms: reap hook, reaping hook

   Coordinate term: scythe

   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 116”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC, signature H, recto:

     Lou's not Times foole, though roſie lips and cheeks
     VVithin his bending ſickles compaſſe come,
     Loue alters not with his breefe houres and vveekes,
     But beares it out euen to the edge of doome:
     If this be error and vpon me proued,
     I neuer vvrit, nor no man euer loued.

   • 1750 June 12 (date written; published 1751), T[homas] Gray, “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard”, in Designs by Mr. R[ichard] Bentley, for Six Poems by Mr. T. Gray, London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], published 1753, →OCLC, page 81:

     Oft did the harveſt to their ſickle yield,
     Their furrow oft the ſtubborn glebe has broke;
     How jocund did they drive their team afield!
     How bow’d the woods beneath their ſturdy ſtroke!

3. Anything resembling a sickle, especially:
   1. A sickle faether, any of the sickle-shaped rear feathers of the domestic cock.
   2. (poetic) The crescent moon.
      • 1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Part 1”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:

        Then, ere the silver sickle of that month
        Became her golden shield, I stole from court
        With Cyril and with Florian, unperceived.

sickle (third-person singular simple present sickles, present participle sickling, simple past and past participle sickled)

1. (agriculture, transitive, rare) To cut with a sickle. [from 1922]

   Near-synonyms: reap, mow

2. (pathology, intransitive) Of red blood cells: to assume an abnormal crescent shape.
   • 1975, Robert Warren McGilvery, IV. 75, in Biochemistry:

     Even the cells of heterozygotes will sickle if the oxygen tension is low enough.

3. (pathology, transitive) To deform (as with a red blood cell) into an abnormal crescent shape, to cause to sickle.

• (transitive: to deform): sickler

• Celiks, Eslick, Ickles, Leicks, ickles