Daily AncestorScythe
A scythe on a gravestone stands for death as the reaper, cutting down life like grain at the last harvest.
The scythe was the tool of death personified, and on early colonial stones it is often held by a skeleton. The image said bluntly that life is short and the reaper will come.
On Victorian stones the scythe, or the smaller sickle, appears more gently on graves of people who lived to old age, as the harvest of a ripe life, sometimes with wheat. Even then it remained one of the gloomier symbols, so read it together with the dates on the stone.
As seen in a recordMassachusetts or Connecticut burying ground, 1680 to 1760
Skeleton holding a scythe and dart: Here lyes ye Body of Deacon Elnathan Gorham, who Decd Septr 3d 1719
Sources
- Early American Gravestones: Introduction to the Farber Gravestone Collection, by Jessie Lie Farber (American Antiquarian Society)
- Gravestones of New England (Westport Library resource guide)
- Messages in Stone: Symbolism on Victorian Grave Markers, by Loren N. Horton (The Palimpsest, State Historical Society of Iowa, 1989)
How to cite this page
Daily Ancestor. "Scythe." Dictionary of Old Record Words. https://dailyancestor.com/dictionary/gravestone-symbols/scythe. Last checked 2026-10-15.