scythemann.
/ˈsʌɪðmən/ 1.
a. One who uses a scythe.
ΘΚΠ
the world > food and drink > farming > cultivation or tillage > cultivation of plants or crops > harvesting > [noun] > cutting, reaping, or mowing > reaper or mower
reapmanOE
reaperOE
mower1225
shearer1318
puller1332
winner1352
repstera1450
harvestman1552
scytheman1577
harvester1589
sickler1638
messor1656
cradler1766
grass mower1779
thraver1813
reapa1825
bagger1844
cradle-man1889
1577 H. Peacham Garden of Eloquence sig. Pijv Reapers cutting downe Corne in euery fielde, Sithmen labouryng harde.
1605 1st Pt. Jeronimo sig. E4 As sithmen trim the long haird Ruffian fields, So fast they fall.
1797 S. T. Coleridge in J. Cottle Early Recoll. (1837) I. 215 When the scythes-man o'er his sheaf Caroll'd in the yellow vale.
1844 H. Stephens Bk. of Farm III. 1050 The scytheman requires a person to follow him and carefully gather the corn he has mown into sheaves in bands.
1894 S. R. Crockett 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.
ΘΚΠ
society > armed hostility > warrior > armed man > [noun] > scythe
scytheman1849
1849 T. B. Macaulay Hist. Eng. II. vi. 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.
1889 A. Conan Doyle Micah Clarke xv. 138 See that your scythesmen line the quickset hedge upon the right.
2. figurative. Applied to Time and to Death.
ΘΚΠ
the world > time > [noun] > personified
time?a1439
scytheman1817
scyther1901
the world > life > death > [noun] > personified or as an agent
deathOE
dragon?a1513
stinger1552
stretch-legc1560
king of terrors1610
divorcer?1611
reaper1650
raw-bone1784
Small-Back1823
grim reaper1847
the great or last enemy1885
scytheman1909
1817 W. Scott Rob Roy I. x. 236 ‘The old scythe-man has moved so rapidly,’ I answered, ‘that I could not count his strides.’
1844 W. H. Maxwell Scotl. (1855) xxxix. 305 Time, that villanous old scytheman.
1909 Daily News 1 Apr. 4 The stroke of the dread scythesman.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1911; most recently modified version published online December 2020).
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