scye
English
Etymology
Borrowed from Scots sey (“armhole, cut of beef”), from Middle Scots say, possibly from Old Norse segi, sigi (“chunk, bite”),[1] from Proto-Germanic *segô, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *sek- (“to cut”).[2]
Pronunciation
Noun
scye (plural scyes)
- An armhole (or, occasionally, a leghole) in tailoring and dressmaking.
- 1974, Guy Davenport, Tatlin!:
- on the seat lay folded a pair of blue cotton pants creased at the groin, their short fly zippered open, and over them a white underbrief, the sinus of its pouch humped between elliptical scyes.
References
- ^ “say, n.3”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from William A[lexander] Craigie, A[dam] J[ack] Aitken [et al.], editors, A Dictionary of the Older Scottish Tongue: […], Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, 1931–2002, →OCLC.
- ^ de Vries, Jan (1977) “segi, sigi”, in Altnordisches etymologisches Wörterbuch [Old Norse Etymological Dictionary][1] (in German), 2nd revised edition, Leiden: Brill, page 467