Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The curved helve or handle of a scythe, to which are attached short handles called nibs. See scythe.
  • A variant of snead.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb Prov. Eng. To lop; to prune.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb UK, dialect To lop; to prune.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Compare Icelandic sneia, to cut into slices.

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Examples

  • When the mower wanted a new snathe or snead, as he called it, for his scythe, he found in the woods a deformed sapling that had grown under a log or twisted around a rock in a double bend, which made it the exact shape desired.

    Home Life in Colonial Days Alice Morse Earle 1881

  • The handleless scythe-snathe is said to have come over on the _Mayflower_.

    Home Life in Colonial Days Alice Morse Earle 1881

  • I was also able to find three hexagrams, the second of which is an extension of one of the quinquagrams: aehnst: thanes, snathe, nathes, hasten, enhats,

    VERBATIM: The Language Quarterly Vol XIII No 2 1986

  • Clearly Rufus had no love for the axe, nor for the scythe, but he could endure both while talking with Winthrop; though many a time it would happen that axe and scythe would be lost in the interest of other things; and leaning on his snathe, or flinging his axe into a cut, Rufus would stand to argue, or demonstrate, or urge, somewhat just then possessing all his faculties; till a quiet reminder of his brother's would set him to laughing and to work again; and sweetly moved the scythes through the grass, and cheerily rung the axes, for the winrows were side by side and the ringing answered from tree to tree.

    The Hills of the Shatemuc 1856

  • Rufus had no love for the axe, nor for the scythe, but he could endure both while talking with Winthrop; though many a time it would happen that axe and scythe would be lost in the interest of other things; and leaning on his snathe, or flinging his axe into a cut, Rufus would stand to argue, or demonstrate, or urge, somewhat just then possessing all his faculties; till a quiet reminder of his brother's would set him to laughing and to work again; and sweetly moved the scythes through the grass, and cheerily rung the axes, for the winrows were side by side and the ringing answered from tree to tree.

    Hills of the Shatemuc Susan Warner 1852

Comments

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  • JM snathes!

    February 17, 2011