"scytale" meaning in English

See scytale in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈsɪtəliː/, /ˈskɪt-/ Forms: scytales [plural]
Etymology: From Ancient Greek σκυτάλη (skutálē, “baton”). Etymology templates: {{bor|en|grc|σκυτάλη||baton}} Ancient Greek σκυτάλη (skutálē, “baton”) Head templates: {{en-noun}} scytale (plural scytales)
  1. (historical) A cylinder with a strip of parchment wound around it on which a message is written, used for cryptography in Ancient Greece. Wikipedia link: scytale Tags: historical
    Sense id: en-scytale-en-noun-PqofMqf3 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for scytale meaning in English (2.8kB)

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          "text": "But, being perſwaded that they would not hear any propoſal to that effect, he delivered each of them a ſcytale, or ſtaff on which the Lacedemonians wrote their ſecret letters, and with theſe diſpatch’d them home to the Ephori.",
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          "ref": "1764, William Guthrie, John Gray, A General History of the World from the Creation to the present Time, volume II, J. Newberry et al., page 408",
          "text": "This Perſian grandee reſolved, if poſſible, to humble the inſolence and haughtineſs of Lyſander, and for this purpoſe diſpatched ſome of his emiſſaries to Sparta, where they expoſed his ambitious views, charging him with an intention to render himſelf general for life, and independant of his conſtituents, and alleged ſuch probable reaſons for what they ſaid, that the ſenate and Ephori immediately diſpatched a ſcytale to recall him.",
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-06-19 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-06-06 using wiktextract (372f256 and 664a3bc). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

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