Definition of "strigil" []

• An instrument used in ancient Greece and Rome for scraping the skin after a bath. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "They likewise made use of the instrument called strigil, which was a kind of flesh-brush; a custom to which Persius alludes in this line,"
• "Here you get massaged with the thyme-infused oil and have the day’s dirt scraped off you with a curved instrument called a strigil."
• "The Greeks and other mediterranean ancients, commonly cleaned themselves by rubbing with scented oils and then scraping themselves with a metal strigil, bringing off the dead skin and dirt with the oil (this is making a comeback now as a "modern" beauty method)."