scissor

plural scissors

1. attributiveAttributive form of scissors.

   I had clipped out the photo, feeling pathetic about the act from the moment I slipped my thumb into the scissor hole.

   2005, Jason Anderson, Showbiz, ECW Press, →ISBN, page 21

   3 more examples

   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.

   2006, Gordon Campbell, editor, The Grove Encyclopedia of Decorative Arts, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 298, column 1

   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!”

   2008, Clay Walker, Sir Long Chain Charles, Indianapolis, Ind.: Dog Ear Publishing, →ISBN, page 43

   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.

   2010, Jennifer Maruno, Warbird, Napoleon Publishing, →ISBN, page 85

2. rarechiefly when detachedOne blade of a pair of scissors.
3. South AsianonstandardScissors.

present singular third person scissors · participle present scissoring · participle past scissored · past scissored · alternative rare scissors

1. transitiveTo cut using, or as if using, scissors.

   […] Millroy scissored open his pants leg and bandaged his shin.

   1993, Paul Theroux, chapter 4, in Millroy the Magician, New York: Ivy Books, published 1995, page 29

   5 more examples

   […] 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 […]

   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

   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 […]

   Tucked between the pages were Sunday features, together with scissored snippings from gossip columns.

   1958, Truman Capote, chapter 4, in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, New York: Vintage, published 1993, page 37

   They clipped the beads from her arms and scissored inches from her hair.

   2008, Toni Morrison, A Mercy, New York: Knopf, page 48

   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.

   2023 July 12, Jim Steer, “Rail's route to seizing the initiative”, in RAIL, number 987, page 39

2. transitiveTo excise or expunge something from a text.

   The erroneous testimony was scissored from the record.

   2 more examples

   The next line and a half had been scissored out by the censor.

   1955, Lionel Shapiro, chapter 15, in The Sixth of June, Garden City, NY: Doubleday

   At one university the navy made me attend, I took out a Chaucer which had lines scissored out […]

   2003, William Gass, “The Shears of the Censor”, in Tests of Time, University of Chicago Press, page 190

3. obsoletetransitiveTo 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.”

   1 more example

   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.

4. intransitivetransitiveTo move something like a pair of scissors, especially the legs.

   The runner scissored over the hurdles.

   4 more examples

   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.

   His jaws were scissoring mechanically on the already mushy sweet potatoes.

   1969, Maya Angelou, chapter 22, in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, New York: Bantam, published 1971, page 140

   […] I stand on tiptoe, lift a shade and see a pair of nyloned legs scissoring through a cold, wet, metropolitan afternoon.

   1978, Edmund White, chapter 5, in Nocturnes for the King of Naples, Penguin, published 1980, page 67

   She’s got her arms locked around his belly and her legs scissored around his shins […]

   1989, Guy Vanderhaeghe, chapter 9, in Homesick, New York: Ticknor & Fields, published 1990, page 139

5. intransitivelifestyleTo engage in scissoring (tribadism), a sexual act in which two women intertwine their legs and rub their vulvas against each other.
6. hobbiesTo skate with one foot significantly in front of the other.