Word.ws English Dictionary

scytale

/ˈsɪtəliː/

scytale noun: a cylinder with a strip of parchment wound around it on which a message is written, used for cryptography by the ancient Spartans.

scytale: a cylinder with a strip of parchment wound around it on which a message is written, used for...
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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 by the ancient Spartans.
    • 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.1753, Desiderius Erasmus, anonymous translator, The Apophthegms of the Ancients, volume I, A. Millar, translation of Apophthegmatum opus (in New Latin), pages 53–54
    • 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...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

Forms of scytale

pluralscytales
alternative formskytale

Origin of scytale

From Latin scytale (“cylinder used for encoding and decoding”), from Ancient Greek σκυτάλη (skutálē, “club, baton, cylinder used for encoding and decoding”).

Questions about scytale

What does scytale mean?
Scytale means a cylinder with a strip of parchment wound around it on which a message is written, used for cryptography by the ancient Spartans.
What part of speech is scytale?
Scytale is a noun.
How do you pronounce scytale?
Scytale is pronounced /ˈsɪtəliː/.
What is the plural of scytale?
The plural of scytale is scytales.

Words near scytale in the dictionary

  1. scyphose
  2. scyphozoa
  3. scyphozoan
  4. scyphozoans
  5. scyphus
  6. scytale
  7. scytales
  8. scytalinid
  9. scytalinids
  10. Scytalism
  11. Scytalismus

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scytale (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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