noun
sickle
SIHKL
noun
1
A hand tool with a short handle and a curved blade, used for cutting grass or grain crops.
"The farmer swung the sickle in wide arcs to cut the wheat by hand."
"A hammer and sickle appear on the old Soviet flag."
verb
1
Of red blood cells: to distort into an abnormal crescent shape, as in sickle cell disease.
"In sickle cell anaemia, red blood cells sickle and block small blood vessels."
How to Use Sickle
Learner’s notesIn plain EnglishA curved hand-blade for cutting crops, or (of blood cells) to bend into that crescent shape.
Common pairings
hammer and sickle
sickle cell
sickle-shaped
Word Forms
sickled past tense, sickles plural, Sickles plural, sickles singular
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Etymology
From Old English sicol, ultimately borrowed from Latin sīcīlis ("sickle"). Distantly related to "scythe" and "saw".