Wiktionary

scissor

English

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A pair of scissors

Etymology

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From Middle English cysour, cysoure, cysowre, altered from sisours (“scissors”); ultimately from Latin caedere (“to cut”); current spelling influenced by Latin scindere, scissus (“to split”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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scissor (plural scissors)

  1. Attributive form of scissors.
    • 2005, Jason Anderson, Showbiz, ECW Press, →ISBN, page 21:
      I had clipped out the photo, feeling pathetic about the act from the moment I slipped my thumb into the scissor hole.
    • 2006, Gordon Campbell, editor, The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 298, column 1:
      The records of the Cutlers’ Company of London (1624) refer to scissor-making in the city, although the quality of English-made scissors did not match that of continental scissors for another 100 years. A few English firms of scissor-makers, notably those of Beach, Macklin and Neesham, established a small but notable industry at Salisbury, Wilts, from the mid-17th century until the early 20th.
    • 2008, Clay Walker, Sir Long Chain Charles, Indianapolis, Ind.: Dog Ear Publishing, →ISBN, page 43:
      The doctor came over and peeled off the makeshift bandage, cleaned what he could and looked at it. / “Well, I know what I have to do.” He nodded at me and picked up a scissor-type tool. / “Oh, ho, ho! Don’t you do that; don’t do it; don’t you be cutting that thing off. You stitch it up. I need that finger to chord a guitar!”
    • 2010, Jennifer Maruno, Warbird, Napoleon Publishing, →ISBN, page 85:
      He put his two fingers in the scissor holes. He pulled a stray wisp of hair from the thick braid that reached her waist. The small scissors sheared right through it.
  2. (rare) One blade on a pair of scissors.
  3. (India) Scissors.
  4. (noun adjunct) Used in certain noun phrases to denote a thing resembling the action of scissors, as scissor kick, scissor hold (wrestling), scissor jack.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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scissor (third-person singular simple present scissors, present participle scissoring, simple past and past participle scissored)

  1. (transitive) To cut using, or as if using, scissors.
    • 1613–1614 (date written), John Fletcher, William Shak[e]speare, The Two Noble Kinsmen: […], London: […] Tho[mas] Cotes, for Iohn Waterson;  […], published 1634, →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 2:
      […] let me know,
      Why mine owne Barber is unblest, with him
      My poore Chinne too, for tis not Cizard iust
      To such a Favorites glasse […]
    • 1829, uncredited author, “Letters from London,” No. VIII, The Edinburgh Literary Journal, Volume I, Number 19, 21 March, 1829, p. 267,[1]
      [The poem] “All for Love” […] was originally intended for the Keepsake—the Editor of which Annual proposed to have it scissored down into genteel dimensions, which the Laureate refused to do […]
    • 1958, Truman Capote, chapter 4, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, New York: Vintage, published 1993, page 37:
      Tucked between the pages were Sunday features, together with scissored snippings from gossip columns.
    • 1993, Paul Theroux, chapter 4, in Millroy the Magician, New York: Ivy Books, published 1995, page 29:
      […] Millroy scissored open his pants leg and bandaged his shin.
    • 2008, Toni Morrison, A Mercy, New York: Knopf, page 48:
      They clipped the beads from her arms and scissored inches from her hair.
    • 2023 July 12, Jim Steer, “Rail's route to seizing the initiative”, in RAIL, number 987, page 39:
      Network Rail, which had been able to secure funding from a multitude of 'patient capital' players across the world, was brought to heel, its credit card scissored.
  2. (transitive) To excise or expunge something from a text.
    The erroneous testimony was scissored from the record.
    • 1955, Lionel Shapiro, chapter 15, in The Sixth of June‎[2], Garden City, NY: Doubleday:
      The next line and a half had been scissored out by the censor.
    • 2003, William Gass, “The Shears of the Censor”, in Tests of Time, University of Chicago Press, page 190:
      At one university the navy made me attend, I took out a Chaucer which had lines scissored out […]
  3. (transitive, obsolete) To reproduce (text) as an excerpt, copy.
    • 1832, Review of The Etymological Encyclopœdia by D. J. Browne, The New-England Magazine, Volume 3, September, 1832, p. 256,[3]
      The public are no longer excluded from the beauties of Science, if there is any virtue in 257 pages of etymology, scissored from “the best authorities.”
    • 1881, advertisement for Pattison’s Missouri Digest, 1873, published in The Texas Reports: Cases Adjudged in the Supreme Court, Volume 3, Austin: Gammel-Statesman Publishing,[4]
      This Digest is the result of a careful reading of every case, and not a mere scissoring of head notes, as is so often done by digesters.
  4. (transitive, intransitive) To move something like a pair of scissors, especially the legs.
    The runner scissored over the hurdles.
    • 1938, Raymond Chandler, “The King in Yellow,” Part Three, in The Simple Art of Murder, Houghton Mifflin, 1950,[5]
      She lay on her side on the floor under the bed, long legs scissored out as if in running.
    • 1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 22, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings‎[6], New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 140:
      His jaws were scissoring mechanically on the already mushy sweet potatoes.
    • 1978, Edmund White, chapter 5, in Nocturnes for the King of Naples‎[7], Penguin, published 1980, page 67:
      […] I stand on tiptoe, lift a shade and see a pair of nyloned legs scissoring through a cold, wet, metropolitan afternoon.
    • 1989, Guy Vanderhaeghe, chapter 9, in Homesick‎[8], New York: Ticknor & Fields, published 1990, page 139:
      She’s got her arms locked around his belly and her legs scissored around his shins […]
  5. (intransitive, sex) To engage in scissoring (tribadism), a sexual act in which two women intertwine their legs and rub their vulvas against each other.
  6. (skating) To skate with one foot significantly in front of the other.

Alternative forms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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to excise from text

Latin

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Etymology

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From scindō (“I cut, tear”) (supine scissum) ‎ -tor (“-er”, agent noun suffix).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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scissor m (genitive scissōris); third declension

  1. trancheur, somebody who in a banquet cuts the foodstuffs
    • c. 27 CE – 66 CE, Petronius, Satyricon 36:
      Processit statim scissor et ad symphoniam gesticulatus ita laceravit obsonium, ut putares essedarium hydraule cantante pugnare.
      The trancheur walked forward and signed in so concerted a manner while cutting the food that one believed that a chariot fought with a water-flute player.
  2. a kind of gladiator
    • 1st century BCE, Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum IX 466, which is a list of gladiators of the lanista Gaius Salvius Capito in Venusia
      Ret[iarius] C[aius] Clodius
      Scisso[r] M[arcus] Caecilius
      the net fighter Gaius Clodius
      The trancheur Marcus Caecilius
  3. (Medieval Latin) tailor
  4. (Medieval Latin) carver

Declension

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Third-declension noun.

singular plural
nominative scissor scissōrēs
genitive scissōris scissōrum
dative scissōrī scissōribus
accusative scissōrem scissōrēs
ablative scissōre scissōribus
vocative scissor scissōrēs
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