sickle

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English sikel,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English sicol, also sicel,^[5][6][7][8] which most dictionaries take as an early West Germanic borrowing,^[3][9][10] ultimately from Vulgar Latin *sicila,^{[3][11][4][12]} a variant of Latin secula (“sickle”),^[13][14][3] from secō (“to cut”),^[15][16][14] from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”).^[3][15][12] Other Germanic languages took the Latin word too: Middle Dutch sickele (modern sikkel), Middle Low German sekele and Old High German sihhila (modern Sichel),^{[8][3][5][13][5]} The Latin noun is also the source of Italian segolo (“pruning hook”).^[14][12][3] The OED, however, doubts that the Germanic word can be taken as an early borrowing of the Campanian Latin secula.^[5] Weekley lists it with flail and stubble among other early West Germanic loans,^[10] and Ayto points to section and scythe from the same root.^[15] Johnson derived it from Latin secale or sicula.^[17]

Earliest recorded meaning

A short-handled tool with a curved blade for reaping, lopping or trimming: in the West Saxon Gospels (Mark 4:29), about 1000.^[5][6][8] Barnhart dates the Middle English form sikel to probably before 1200.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Figurative use is recorded from before 1599, in Spenser,^[5] and Johnson (1755) quoted Spenser's remark that God's harvest was ready for the sickle.^[17] Etymonline finds the word applied to curved or crescent-shaped things from the mid-15th century,^[3] and the OED from 1459, for an ornamental design in metalwork or embroidery.^[5] It was the crescent moon from 1657,^[5] and Merriam-Webster dates the adjective, sickle-shaped, as in the sickle moon, to 1688.^[9][18] Later uses include a spur for a fighting cock (about 1710), a tail feather of a cock and a group of stars in the constellation Leo (both 1882).^[5] In the 20th century the noun was turned into a verb, to cut with a sickle (1922, in Masefield), and in medicine, of red blood cells taking on a crescent shape (1923);^[5][9] Etymonline dates sickle-cell anemia to 1922.^[3] In Middle English and later dialect a sickle-boon was a day of reaping owed by a tenant to his landlord.^[2][19] In American teenage slang of the mid-20th century a sickle was a motorcycle policeman.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – Old English sicol, a reaping tool.^[5][8]
• before 1200 – Middle English sikel.^[8]
• 1459 – an ornamental design in metalwork or embroidery.^[5] Etymonline dates the use for curved things to the mid-15th century.^[3]
• before 1599 – figurative use, in Spenser.^[5]
• 1657 – the crescent moon.^[5]
• 1688 – adjective, sickle-shaped.^[9][18]
• 1882 – a group of stars in Leo.^[5]
• 1922 – verb, to cut with a sickle, and the term sickle-cell anemia.^[5][3]
• 1923 – of red blood cells, to become crescent-shaped.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. A farming tool with a curved, semicircular blade on a short handle, used for cutting grain or tall grass.^[21][9][22]
2. The cutting part of a reaper, mower or combine.^[21][9]
3. Something shaped like a sickle, such as the crescent moon.^[5][1]

Verb

1. To cut or reap with a sickle: She sickled the nettles along the fence.^[21][9][5]
2. Of red blood cells, to take on, or be deformed into, an abnormal crescent shape.^[21][9][5]

Adjective

1. Curved like the blade of a sickle: a sickle bay.^[9][18]

Word family

• sicklebill
• sicklemia
• sickle cell
• hammer and sickle
• sickle-cell anemia

Related words

• section
• sector
• secant
• scythe
• saw
• segment

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
9. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ Barnhart, Robert K., ed. (1995), The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, New York: HarperCollins
12. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
13. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
16. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
17. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
19. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
20. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
21. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
22. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins