All 11 Uses of

scythe
in
Interview with the Vampire

A dark, draped figure was moving on the stage from tree trunk to tree trunk, so fast that as he stepped into the lights he seemed to appear magically in the center, one arm flashing out from his cloak to show a silver scythe and the other to hold a mask on a slender stick before the invisible face, a mask which showed the gleaming countenance of Death, a painted skull.†
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scythe = a tool for cutting grass that has a curved blade and a long handle that is held with both hands

It was Death standing before the audience, the scythe poised, Death at the edge of a dark wood.†
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All the vampires were gone, except the trickster, who had gathered his scythe from the shadows and also his hand-held mask.†
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It was a small scythe, its sharp curved blade still caked with green weeds from the last mowing.†
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And, though I stood stark still at the stairs with the barrels and the scythe, listening, I heard nothing, nothing of those guards I presumed to be there, nothing of the vampires themselves.†
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And clutching the handle of the scythe I ventured slowly upwards until I stood in the door of the ballroom.†
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But it was too late, I told myself, gripping both the scythe and the torch.†
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And as the dark thing that was his clothes rushed down, I swung the scythe and saw it strike his neck and felt the weight of his neck and saw him fall sideways, both hands reaching for the appalling wound.†
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And I ran after it; the torch and the scythe thrown aside as my arms went up to protect me from the blaze of white light that flooded the stairs to the alley.†
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Definitions:

(1) (scythe)
a tool for cutting grass that has a curved blade and a long handle that is held with both hands

(See this Google Images link for scythe to see samples.)
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)
meaning too rare to warrant focus:

Much more rarely, scythe can be used as a verb to reference the cutting of weeds or tall grasses (such as hay or wheat) with a scythe. Metaphorically, the verb form can be used to describe cutting through anything as in "scythed through the problems in less than a week."