forfex

Borrowed from Latin forfex.

• IPA^(key): /ˈfɔːɹfɛks/

forfex (plural forfices)

1. (obsolete) A pair of shears.
   • 1712 May, [Alexander Pope], “The Rape of the Locke. An Heroi-comical Poem.”, in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. , London: Bernard Lintott , →OCLC, canto:

     The Peer now spreads the glitt'ring Forfex wide,
     T'inclose the Lock; now joins it, to divide.

   • 1825, Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, Encyclopædia of Antiquities:

     the Classical forfices

• “forfex”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

According to de Vaan, from Proto-Italic *forðom, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰerdʰ- (“to capture, shear”), and cognate with Umbrian (furfant, “to do something (probably shearing) to sheep”), Ancient Greek πέρθω (pérthō, “to sack, to ravage”), and πορθέω (porthéō, “to pillage”).^[1]

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈfor.feks/,
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈfor.feks/,

forfex f or m (genitive forficis); third declension

1. pair of shears or scissors

Third-declension noun.

• “forfex”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• forfex in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
• forfex in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.
• “forfex”, in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898), Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• “forfex”, in William Smith et al., editor (1890), A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin
• forfex in Georges, Karl Ernst, Georges, Heinrich (1913–1918) Ausführliches lateinisch-deutsches Handwörterbuch, 8th edition, volume 1, Hahnsche Buchhandlung
• Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1911) “fŏrfex”, in Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch (in German), page 257