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

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.

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!”

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The erroneous testimony was scissored from the record.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Scissor

Meaning

Noun

Verb

Related

Rhymes