scissor

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”).

noun

1. (rare) One blade on a pair of scissors.
2. (India) Scissors.
3. (noun adjunct) Used in certain noun phrases to denote a thing resembling the action of scissors, as scissor kick, scissor hold (wrestling), scissor jack.

verb

1. (transitive) To cut using, or as if using, scissors.
   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
   […] 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
   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. July 12 2023, Jim Steer, “Rail's route to seizing the initiative”, in RAIL, number 987, page 39
2. (transitive) To excise or expunge something from a text.
   The erroneous testimony was scissored from the record.
   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. (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.
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, 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. (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.