pincher
(ˈpɪn(t)ʃə(r))
[f. pinch v. + -er1.]
1. One who or that which pinches; fig. one who saves in a miserly manner; a miser; a haggler.
| c 1440 Promp. Parv. 399/2 Pynchar, or nyggarde. 1591 Percivall Sp. Dict., Regaton, a pedler, a broaker, a pincher in buying, a hucster. 1887 Gissing Thyrza III. iii. 62 Cold-blooded pinchers and parers. |
2. One who uses a pinch or crow-bar.
| 1882 in Ogilvie. |
3. An instrument for pinching or grasping something; in pl. pinchers often = pincers (for which it is widely used in the dialects).
| 1575 Turberv. Venerie 182 Take out the Foxe or Badgerde with the clampes or pinchers. 1589 Nashe Pasquil's Ret. Wks. (Grosart) I. 115 They take the word by the nose with a paire of Pinchers. 1655 Gouge Comm. Heb. xi. 37 The..persecutors..plucked off..his flesh with red hot pinchers. 1709 Brit. Apollo II. Supernum. No. 2.2/2 [A tooth] which I can't pull out with a Pincher. 1868 Key Philol. Ess. 191 Thus forcipes, as ‘a pair of pinchers’ for the extraction of teeth, is used by Lucilius. 1884 Knight Dict. Mech. Suppl., Pincher,..a nipping tool fitting the inside and outside of a bottle, in order to shape the mouth. |
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Add: [1.] b. spec. the claw of a crab, scorpion, etc. Usu. in pl. Cf. pincers n. pl. 2.
| 1910 R. W. Hegner Introd. Zool. xi. 196 The pinchers or chelipeds. 1940 Blunden Poems 1930–40 76 Fixing his pinchers on the snake, Thus spake The crab: ‘It's Time for you, mate.’ 1986 A. C. Clarke Songs Distant Earth iv. xxv. 88 The giant scorpion ignored him completely as it continued to snip away at the seaweed with its formidable pinchers. |