Scyth Obs. exc. Hist.
(sɪθ)
Forms: 4 Sithe (Schyte, Schite, 5 Scite, Shite, Scytte), 7 Scythe, 9 Scyth.
[ad. L. Scytha, Gr. σκύθης.]
a. A Scythian.
| 1387 Trevisa Higden (Rolls) II. 257 Of Egipcians in þe souþ, and of Sithes [MS. a Schytes; Caxton, Shites] in the norþ. 1480 Caxton Descr. Scot. (1520) 1/1 Scottes ben called as it were scyttes for they came out of Scicia. 1557 North Gueuara's Diall. Pr. (1619) 707/1 The Greekes the Romaines,..the Scythes were alwayes temperat in eating and drinking. 1596 Spenser State Irel. Wks. (Globe) 632/2 The old English also which there remayneth have gotten up theyr cryes Scythian-like... And herein also lyeth open an other manifest proof that the Irish be Scythes or Scotts. 1871 P. Smith Anc. Hist. East xxiii. §12 (1881) 473 The Sacæ of Greek writers on Persian affairs are simply Asiatic Scyths. 1914 D. G. Hogarth Ancient East iii. 122 The predatory Scyth..probably lacked skill to inscribe them. 1950 [see Cimmerian]. 1964 Listener 6 Feb. 238/2 So we came to the plain and the Scyths. 1973 R. L. Fox Alexander iv. 75 The barbarian Scyths and Thracians. |
b. = Scythian n. 1 b. rare.
| 1972 B. Thomson Premature Revolution i. vii. 130 The ‘Scyths’ revived the old Slavophile faith in the Russian peasantry, as a bastion of spiritual values in an age of materialism... Usually the ‘Scyths’ were concerned with purely Russian questions, but Blok's poem The Scyths (Skify, 1918) reveals a chauvinistic and aggressive side to the movement. |