Like any tool with a long history, the scythe has some unusual terms associated with it. As well as the annotated photo showing the anatomy of a scythe, we’ve prepared a glossary of terms that may be useful.
- Dress
- This may not even be a scything term, actually… but we speak of ‘dressing’ the edge of a blade in reference to the process of restoring a sharp edge to a blade that has just had some work done to it which has detracted from the edge – whether in peening, repair, or other preparation.
- Peening
- Sharpening the blade by hitting it with a hammer. See our page on peening.
- Honing
- Sharpening the blade with a whetstone. See our page on honing.
- Swath(e)
- The arc of the scythe in the grass, as in “cutting a wider swathe”. Confusingly, it can also mean the mown grass as it lies. But on this site we mean the former. The latter, we call a…
- Thumbnail test
- This is the ‘gold standard’ test of a finely peened blade. The metal of the edge of the blade will ‘give’ slightly under the pressure of a thumbnail pushed gently underneath it (under the edge, not against the edge!)
- Windrow
- The cut grass or crop that lies in a neat row after being mown. For a right handed mower the windrow gathers on the left at the end of the stroke. This is a ‘natural’ result of mowing with a scythe.