One way to hold scythe: a person standing upright, turning from the waist, while a long curved blade travels close to the ground in a wide arc. Nothing is chopped. A whole strip of standing grass simply lies down at the same moment. Every other use of the word — the verb, the figurative sweep, even the blade on an ancient chariot — keeps some part of that arc.
From the word’s history
The word comes down from Old English sīþe, and behind it sits a root meaning 'to cut', the same family as saw. The silent c was only slipped into the spelling in the early 15th century, which is why the old forms sithe and sythe look closer to the sound.
這個字從古英文 sīþe 傳下來，更早的詞根意思就是「切」，跟 saw（鋸子）屬於同一家。拼字裡不發音的 c 要到十五世紀初才被加進去，所以舊寫法 sithe、sythe 反而更貼近它的讀音。
Wiktionary 'scythe' etymology_text supplied in this evidence packet (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:662791622:42766); the packet's text is truncated after 'The silent c crept in during the early 15th century owing to', so only the dated part of that claim is repeated.
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