sickle

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An implement having a semicircular blade attached to a short handle, used for cutting grain or tall grass.
2. n. The cutting mechanism of a reaper or mower.
3. v. To cut with a sickle.
4. v. To deform (a red blood cell) into an abnormal crescent shape.
5. v. To assume an abnormal crescent shape. Used of red blood cells.
6. adj. Shaped like the blade of a sickle; crescent-shaped: a sickle moon.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A reaping-hook; a curved blade of steel (anciently also of bronze) having the edge on the inner side of the curve, with a short handle or haft, for cutting with the right hand grain or grass which is grasped by the left. The sickle is the oldest of reaping-instruments, and still continues in use for some purposes, including in certain localities the gathering of crops. Sickles were formerly sometimes serrated, or made with sharp sloping teeth; the ordinary smooth-edged sickles are now sometimes called grass-knives or grass-hooks.
2. n. A sickle-shaped sharp-edged spur or gaff formerly used in cock-fighting.
3. n. In embryology, a crescentie thickening at the posterior edge of the blastodisc in certain vertebrate embryos with meroblastic eggs, such as the fishes and reptiles.
4. n. A crescentie whitish area in the choroid commonly observed in cases of myopia.
5. n. One of the arms; which support the yarn guide-wire, or faller, on the spindle-carriage of a spinning-mule: so named from its shape.
6. n. A sickle-feather.

Wiktionary

1. n. agriculture an implement, having a semicircular blade and short handle, used for cutting long grass and cereal crops
2. v. agriculture, transitive To cut with a sickle
3. v. transitive To deform (as with a red blood cell) into an abnormal crescent shape.
4. v. intransitive To assume an abnormal crescent shape. Used of red blood cells.
5. adj. Shaped like the blade of a sickle; crescent-shaped.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A reaping instrument consisting of a steel blade curved into the form of hook, and having a handle fitted on a tang. The sickle has one side of the blade notched, so as always to sharpen with a serrated edge. Cf. Reaping hook, under reap.
2. n. (Astron.) A group of stars in the constellation Leo. See Illust. of Leo.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an edge tool for cutting grass or crops; has a curved blade and a short handle