scissors

1. 1
   nouncountableplural

   A cutting tool made of two crossing blades joined at a pivot, which slide past each other to cut thin material when the handles close.

   The tailor's heavy scissors cut through three layers of fabric at once.

   A child should always carry scissors with the points facing down.

   Similarshears, snips

   Note

   A borrowed name for an old tool: Middle English sisours came through Old French cisoirs from Late Latin cīsōria, built on Latin caedō, "to cut." It partly pushed aside the native Old English sċēara, which survives as shears. The noun usually takes a plural verb (those scissors are sharp), though a singular verb also occurs (that scissors is sharp). Before another noun it drops the -s: a scissor blade.

2. 2
   noununcountableplural

   In rock-paper-scissors, the two-finger handshape that beats paper and loses to rock, and in the lizard-Spock variant also beats lizard but loses to Spock.

   She beat my paper by throwing scissors at the last second.

   Played against rock, scissors will always lose.

   Note

   A game word that keeps its plural form for a single hand. Two fingers spread in a V stand for the blades, and the game's logic follows the tool: scissors cut paper but cannot cut rock. Like rock and paper, it usually takes no article, so players simply say they threw scissors.

3. 3
   nouncountableplural

   An exercise in which the legs are switched back and forth past each other, suggesting the opening-and-closing motion of scissors.

   He added a weighted scissors to make the core workout harder.

   Gymnasts often warm up with scissors before their tumbling passes.

   Note

   Here the tool lends its motion rather than its shape: the legs cross and uncross the way blades open and close. The exercise is countable and keeps the same form for one or many, so a workout can include a weighted scissors or a set of scissors. Gymnasts also use it as a warm-up before tumbling.

4. 4
   nouncountableplural

   A hold in which one fighter traps an opponent between the crossed legs, squeezing like a closing pair of blades.

   The wrestler locked in a body scissors and held it until the bell.

   A well-timed scissors can pin a stronger opponent to the mat.

   Note

   Wrestling shortens the full name, scissors hold, to the single word. The hold is often named for the part of the body it traps, as in a body scissors. The attributive form scissor also appears in scissor hold, following the same pattern as scissor kick and scissor jack.

5. 5
   nouncountableplural

   An attacking move by two players, in which the player without the ball runs behind the ball carrier and takes a pass on the opposite side.

   The fly-half threw a perfect scissors to wrong-foot the defense.

   A well-executed scissors split the opposition's midfield wide open.

   Similarswitch, crossover

   Note

   A set move in rugby. It is counted like any other play, so a team executes a scissors, and one scissors looks the same as two. The deception lies in the crossing runs: defenders who follow the ball carrier's line are caught out when the pass goes back the other way, behind them.

6. 6
   nouncountableplural

   A skating method in which one foot is held significantly ahead of the other along the line of travel.

   He used a low scissors to keep control on the steep slope.

   A wide scissors gives skaters more stability at speed.

   Note

   A skating stance named for its shape. With one foot pushed well ahead of the other, the legs look like a pair of half-open blades. The staggered feet lengthen the skater's base from front to back, which helps explain why the stance is used for stability at speed or on steep ground.

7. 7
   noununcountableplural

   A defensive maneuver in air combat in which a pilot repeatedly turns the aircraft toward the attacker to force them to overshoot.

   The pilot relied on scissors to force the trailing fighter to overshoot.

   Good scissors demands tight, well-timed turns into the threat.

   Note

   Fighter pilots name the tactic with the definite article: a defender goes into the scissors. In this use it is uncountable, a way of fighting rather than a thing to count. When pilots mean one exchange of reversing turns, they switch to the countable noun. The image is two flight paths crossing and recrossing, like blades closing.

8. 8
   nouncountableplural

   A single occurrence of the defensive air-combat maneuver in which a pilot turns repeatedly toward an attacker to force an overshoot.

   One sharp scissors was enough to make the attacker overshoot.

   After a desperate scissors, the pilot finally gained the advantage.

   Note

   Here the maneuver becomes a countable event. A pilot flies a scissors, or a whole series of them, and the form is the same in the singular and the plural. The article marks the difference: a scissors is one exchange of turns, while the scissors is the tactic in general.

9. 9
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present indicative of scissor.

   The machine scissors the sheet metal along a marked line.

   She scissors each photograph free of its border before mounting it.

   Note

   Here the -s is the ordinary present-tense ending on the verb scissor, so it agrees with he, she or it: she scissors the cloth, but they scissor it. The same spelling is shared by the noun and by the rare verb built on scissors, whose own present-tense form is scissorses. Only context tells them apart.

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