scythe
n. countablen. a long tool with a curved metal blade used for cutting tall grass or grain. It is pushed or pulled by hand and has a long wooden handle.
n. a long-handled agricultural tool with a curved, serrated blade used for mowing grass or reaping grain. Typically operated by pushing or pulling the blade through the crop.
The farmer used a scythe to cut the tall grass in the field.
Before the invention of the mechanical mower, every village relied on the rhythmic sound of the scythe during the harvest season.
The rhythmic swing of the scythe was a familiar sound in the valley, marking the transition from the summer heat to the autumn harvest.
From Middle English sythe, sithe, from Old English sīþe, sīgþe, sigdi (“sickle”), from Proto-West Germanic sigiþi, from Proto-Germanic sigiþiz, sigiþō, derived from seg- (“saw”), from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”). Immediate Germanic cognates include Middle Low German sēgede, Dutch zicht, Icelandic sigð (all “sickle”). More distantly related with Dutch zeis, German Sense (both “scythe”). Also akin to English saw, which see. The silent c crept in during the early 15th century owing to folk-etymological association with Medieval Latin scissor (“tailor, carver”), from Latin scindō (“to cut, rend, split”). The verb, which was first used in the intransitive sense, is from the noun.