Word.ws English Dictionary

scissor

/ˈsɪzə/US/ˈsɪzɚ/

scissor noun: one blade of a pair of scissors. Also the attributive form of scissors.

scissor: one blade of a pair of scissors
Image: BGN-WMCO, CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

scissor (plural scissors)

  1. (rare, chiefly when detached) One blade of a pair of scissors.
  2. (India) Scissors.

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) To cut using, or as if using, scissors.
    • […] 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
    • [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 […]1829, uncredited author, “Letters from London,” No. VIII, The Edinburgh Literary Journal, Volume I, Number 19, 21 March, 1829, p. 267
  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
  3. (obsolete, transitive) To reproduce (text) as an excerpt, copy.
    • 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.”1832, Review of The Etymological Encyclopœdia by D. J. Browne, The New-England Magazine, Volume 3, September, 1832, p. 256
    • 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.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
  4. (intransitive, transitive) To move something like a pair of scissors, especially the legs.
    • The runner scissored over the hurdles.
    • She lay on her side on the floor under the bed, long legs scissored out as if in running.1938, Raymond Chandler, “The King in Yellow,” Part Three, in The Simple Art of Murder, Houghton Mifflin, 1950
  5. (intransitive) To engage in scissoring (tribadism), a sexual act in which two women intertwine their legs and rub their vulvas against each other.
  6. To skate with one foot significantly in front of the other.

Also used as

scissor is also the attributive form of scissors.

scissor meaning in Tagalog and Malay

scissor in Tagalog

one blade on a pair of scissors
gunting

scissor in Malay

to cut using scissors
menggunting

Examples of scissor in a sentence

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

All 17 example sentences with scissor

Forms of scissor

Noun
pluralscissors
Verb
third-person singular presentscissors
present participlescissoring
past participlescissored
pastscissored
alternative form (rare)scissors

Plural of scissor: scissors

Origin of scissor

From Middle English cysour, cysoure, cysowre, altered from sisours (“scissors”), from Old French cisoires, cisours, cisur, from Latin caedere (“to cut”); current spelling influenced by Latin scindere, scissus (“to split”).

Words formed from scissor

Phrases with scissor

Questions about scissor

What does scissor mean?
Scissor means one blade of a pair of scissors.
What is scissor in Tagalog?
Scissor in Tagalog is gunting. See Scissor meaning in Tagalog.
How do you use scissor in a sentence?
Tucked between the pages were Sunday features, together with scissored snippings from gossip columns.
What part of speech is scissor?
Scissor can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce scissor?
Scissor is pronounced /ˈsɪzə/ (UK).
What is the plural of scissor?
The plural of scissor is scissors.

Words near scissor in the dictionary

  1. scissile
  2. scission
  3. scissions
  4. scissiparity
  5. scissiparous
  6. scissor
  7. scissor binoculars
  8. scissor bite
  9. scissor bites
  10. scissor congruence
  11. scissor cross

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: scissor (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-scissor.wav.

Cite this entry: “scissor.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/scissor. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.