| 释义 |
scytheman|ˈsaɪðmən|
Also 8–9 scythesman.
[f. scythe n. + man n.1]
1. One who uses a scythe.
1577Peacham Gard. Eloq. P ij b, Reapers cutting downe Corne in euery fielde, Sithmen labouryng harde. 16051st Pt. Jeronimo iii. ii, As sithmen trim the long haird Ruffian fields, So fast they fall. 1797Coleridge in J. Cottle Early Recoll. (1837) I. 215 When the scythes-man o'er his sheaf Caroll'd in the yellow vale. 1844H. Stephens Bk. Farm III. 1050 The scytheman requires a person to follow him and carefully gather the corn he has mown into sheaves in bands. 1894Crockett Raiders 297 Three kinds of sand he brought me to see, but not being a scytheman I could not tell the difference.
b. A member of an irregular body of troops, armed with a scythe as a weapon.
1849Macaulay Hist. Eng. vi. II. 23 Another said that he should be glad to know how the Devonshire trainbands, who had fled in confusion before Monmouth's scythemen, would have faced the household troops of Lewis. 1889Doyle Micah Clarke 138 See that your scythesmen line the quickset hedge upon the right.
2. fig. Applied to Time and to Death.
1818Scott Rob Roy x, ‘The old scythe-man has moved so rapidly,’ I answered, ‘that I could not count his strides.’ 1844W. H. Maxwell Scotland xxxix. (1855) 305 Time, that villanous old scytheman. 1909Daily News 1 Apr. 4 The stroke of the dread scythesman. |