Case File #021.09.06: SCYTHE

The moniker for the Grim Reaper's favorite tool, scythe, is one of those few extant English words that date all the way back to the days of the original Anglo-Saxons, and though its spelling has changed a little over the years—the Old English form was sithe—its meaning has remained essentially the same. According to linguists, the word is semantically a direct descendant of the Proto-Germanic segitho, a noun that itself descended from the Indo-European root sek-, which basically meant “cut.” The shift in spelling from sithe to scythe occurred in the mid-fifteenth century, likely due to the influence of the Latin verb scindere, which meant “to divide” or “to split.” And yes, as that sharp mind of yours has surely guessed, that Latin term is also a progenitor of the English verb scissor and its related noun scissors.

©2021 Michael R. Gates