scissor

English

A pair of scissors

Etymology

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

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈsɪzə/
Audio (Southern England) (file)
(General American) IPA^(key): /ˈsɪzɚ/
Rhymes: -ɪzə(ɹ)

Noun

scissor (plural scissors)

(rare) One blade on a pair of scissors.
(India) Scissors.
(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

scissorbill
scissored
scissor kick
scissorlike
scissor sister
scissor switch
scissor tackle
scissor tooth
scissorwise

Translations

one blade on a pair of scissors

Bulgarian: ножица (bg) f (nožica)
Catalan: tisora (ca) f
Finnish: saksenterä
French: ciseau (fr)
German: Schere (de) f
Greek: ψαλίδι (el) n (psalídi)
Hungarian: olló (hu)
Italian: forbici (it) f pl
Spanish: tijera (es) f
Swedish: skänkel (sv) c, skalm (sv) c, saxblad (sv) n
Tagalog: gunting

noun adjunct

Finnish: saksi- (fi)
Swedish: sax- (sv)

Verb

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

(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 1170464517, Act V, scene i, page 10:
  […] 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,
  [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, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, New York: Vintage, 1993 Chapter 4, p. 37,
  Tucked between the pages were Sunday features, together with scissored snippings from gossip columns.
- 1993, Paul Theroux, Millroy the Magician, New York: Ivy Books, 1995, Chapter 4, p. 29,
  […] Millroy scissored open his pants leg and bandaged his shin.
- 2008, Toni Morrison, A Mercy, New York: Knopf, p. 48,
  They clipped the beads from her arms and scissored inches from her hair.
(transitive) To excise or expunge something from a text.
The erroneous testimony was scissored from the record.
- 1955, Lionel Shapiro, The Sixth of June, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Chapter 15,
  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, p. 190,
  At one university the navy made me attend, I took out a Chaucer which had lines scissored out […]
(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,
  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,
  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.
(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,
  She lay on her side on the floor under the bed, long legs scissored out as if in running.
- 1969, Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, 1971, Chapter 22, p. 140,
  His jaws were scissoring mechanically on the already mushy sweet potatoes.
- 1978, Edmund White, Nocturnes for the King of Naples, Penguin, 1980, Chapter 5, p. 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, Homesick, New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1990, Chapter 9, p. 139,
  She’s got her arms locked around his belly and her legs scissored around his shins […]
(intransitive, sex) To engage in scissoring (tribadism), a sexual act in which two women intertwine their legs and rub their vulvas against each other.
(skating) To skate with one foot significantly in front of the other.

Alternative forms

scissors (rare)

Derived terms

unscissored

Translations

to cut using scissors

Biatah Bidayuh: gutin
Bulgarian: режа с ножица (reža s nožica)
Dutch: knippen (nl)
Finnish: saksia (fi), leikata saksilla
French: couper aux ciseaux
Greek: ψαλιδίζω (el) (psalidízo)
Ido: cizagar (io)
Malay: menggunting
Maori: kutikuti
Norwegian: klippe (no)
Swedish: klippa (sv), saxa (sv)
Turkish: makasla kesmek, kayırtmak (tr)

to excise from text

Bulgarian: изрязвам (bg) (izrjazvam)
Finnish: saksia (fi), leikata (fi)
Greek: περικόπτω (el) (perikópto)

to move something like a pair of scissors

Finnish: saksata
Hungarian: ollózik

to engage in scissoring, a sexual act

Finnish: saksittaa (fi)
Spanish: hacer la tijereta (es), hacer la tijera (es)

Latin

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

(Classical) IPA^(key): /ˈskis.sor/, [ˈs̠kɪs̠ːɔr]

(Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈʃis.sor/, [ˈʃisːor]

Noun

scissor m (genitive scissōris); third declension

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.
a kind of gladiator
- 1^st 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
(Medieval Latin) tailor
(Medieval Latin) carver

Declension

Third-declension noun.

Case	Singular	Plural
Nominative	scissor	scissōrēs
Genitive	scissōris	scissōrum
Dative	scissōrī	scissōribus
Accusative	scissōrem	scissōrēs
Ablative	scissōre	scissōribus
Vocative	scissor	scissōrēs