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From grim + reaper, first attested 1847. The word grim previously had a stronger meaning ("fierce, angry, sinister") and had more of an association with ghostliness (compare Old Englishgrima(“specter, apparition”), Englishgrim (n.)). The association between grim and death dates back to at least the late 16th century (the line "grim death, how foul and loathsome is thine image" appears in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew around 1590). The reaper element comes from the personification of Death as a reaper (harvester) of souls in connection to to the popular depiction of Death wielding a scythe. The symbol of the scythe itself comes from a partially unintentional conflation of Cronus (the Titan associated with the harvest, said to have used his scythe to castrate his father Uranus) and Chronos (the personification of Father Time).
"Golly, I feel like the devil!" muttered Anthony dispassionately. Relaxing, he tumbled back upon his pillow. "Bring on your grim reaper!"
1922, P. G. Wodehouse, The Clicking of Cuthbert:
Mary, will you be mine? Shall we go round together? Will you fix up a match with me on the links of life which shall end only when the Grim Reaper lays us both a stymie?
2019 March 6, Drachinifel, 25:58 from the start, in The Battle of Samar (Alternate History) - Bring on the Battleships!, archived from the original on 4 July 2022:
On the one hand, we had a scenario where, effectively, the American admiral just went "You know what, all the destroyers attack", at which point they mowed through the Japanese destroyers like a Grim Reaper through a harvest of very, very dead gorn, especially with the Brooklyns in support.
2021 January 13, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Make freight an equal priority”, in Rail, page 3:
But that is the likely outcome if the railway waits for Treasury's grim reaper to come a-calling.
