moonsickle

From moon +‎ sickle.

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) IPA^(key): /ˈmuːnˌsɪkl̩/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: moon‧sick‧le

moonsickle (plural moonsickles)

1. (poetic) A thin crescent of the moon.
   • 1843, L M Child, “Slavery’s Pleasant Homes. A Faithful Sketch.”, in [Maria Weston Chapman], editor, The Liberty Bell, Boston, Mass.: Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Fair, →OCLC, page 148:

     It was a beautiful contrast to see her beside her mistress, like a glittering star in attendance upon the pale and almost vanishing moonsickle.

   • 1861 January, L Maria Child, “Harriet E. Hosmer. A Biographical Sketch.”, in D W Clark, editor, The Ladies’ Repository: A Monthly Periodical, Devoted to Literature and Religion, volume XXI, Cincinnati, Oh.: Poe & Hitchcock , →OCLC, page 4:

     I felt tranquilized while looking at it, as I do when the rosy clouds are fading into gray twilight, and the pale moon-sickle descends slowly behind the dim woods.

   • 1947, Mari Sandoz, “Skyuglers”, in The Tom-Walker: A New Novel, New York, N.Y.: Dial Press, →OCLC; reprinted as The Tom-Walker: A Novel (Bison Book), Lincoln, Neb.: University of Nebraska Press, August 1984, →ISBN, page 17:

     Long after dark, when the moonsickle was near setting, two wagons full of old acquaintances from around the little water-front drug store, a few workers at the warehouses and some vets of old Company G like Clyde Winston gathered to charivari the new couple before the wedding tour up to Niagara Falls that the newspaper told about.

   • 1981, Harold W Hoehner, “The Day of Christ’s Crucifixion”, in Chronological Aspects of the Life of Christ (Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives), Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Publishing House, →ISBN, page 99:

     The Jewish month was a lunar month having no less than twenty-nine and no more than thirty days. The first day of the month was determined from the new moon. Of course, the new moon is not visible, but one or two days after the new moon, a faintly glowing moon sickle appears.

   • 1985, Moyra Caldecott, The Tower and the Emerald, London: Arrow Books, →ISBN:

     But the woman of leaves and flowers, clad in the shimmering cloak of forest-green, with the silver moonsickle brooch at her shoulder, was no longer with them.

   • 1992, Erwin R Goodenough, “Pagan Symbols in Judaism: Astronomical Symbols”, in Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (Bollingen Series; Mythos), abridged edition, Princeton, N.J., Oxford: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 153:

     So Simeon ben Gamaliel did not fear that a Jew would worship an image of the sun or a moon-sickle on a common object like a water pot, but saw danger in a golden or silver moon-sickle which might be worn as a talisman, as he is quoted in self-explanation in the Gemara.

• moon sickle
• moon-sickle

• crescent moon
• sickle moon

• sickle moon