Scissors

How to spell scissors

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce scissors

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does scissors mean?

1. nounA handheld cutting instrument with two pivoted blades worked by finger and thumb holes.

Scissors in a sentence

• She kept a pair of scissors in the kitchen drawer for opening packaging.

• The nurse used sterile scissors to trim the bandage.

Where does scissors come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word came into English in the 1300s from the Old French cisoires, a plural form meaning a cutting tool, which in turn descended from the Late Latin cisorium, literally 'an instrument for cutting'. That Latin noun was built on the verb caedere, meaning 'to cut down' or 'to strike', whose past participle stem caes- supplied many cutting words. Early English spellings such as 'sisoures' and 'cisours' stayed close to the French. The puzzling 'sc' at the front was added later by scribes who wrongly assumed a link with the unrelated Latin verb scindere, meaning 'to split or cleave', and that mistaken learned spelling stuck. This is precisely why the modern word carries a silent, etymologically bogus 'c' that catches writers out, and why scissors is always plural like the two blades it names.

How the word is built

• sc- (spelling influenced by Latin scindere: to cut)
• ciss- (from Late Latin cisorium: cutting instrument)
• -ors (plural ending)