pincer
/ˈpɪnsə
/noun
1 (pincers or a pair of pincers) A tool made of two pieces of metal with blunt concave jaws that are arranged like the blades of scissors, used for gripping and pulling things.They had brought with them a car which they proceeded to cut apart using a large pair of pincers and spreaders....
- I could feel them pulling as if they were trying to separate the skin at the edge of the wound with a pair of pincers.
- The heated billets (short lengths of red hot steel) shoot out of the reheating furnace and are caught by the fettlers, men equipped with large pincers, and fed manually into the mill roll.
2A front claw of a lobster, crab, or similar crustacean.In others, they are intermediate in size and appear to function as pincers or nippers, as in other groups of mammals....
- Besides the salad there were two shelled crab pincers, without any seasoning but still tasty.
- To attract a mate, the male lobster users his pincers to snip off one of the eyes of the girl he fancies.
Origin
Middle English: from Anglo-Norman French, from Old French pincier 'to pinch'.