When is it correct to use "scissors" as a singular noun?

Question

In the Oxford dictionary website, the following example for scissors is given:

A small suture scissors was used to "fish" for the deeply embedded hair.

However I find weird that it treats scissors as singular, being a plural noun. Shouldn't it be Small suture scissors were used...?

Why is it correct to treat scissors as singular in that case (assuming it's indeed correct)?

Please note that I'm only interested in the use of the noun scissors, the ones that are used to cut, not any other meaning of the word.

Answer 1

You can use scissors with a singular verb anytime you want. However, to prevent getting into arguments, you may wish to limit this usage to medical scissors. Or you can say 'if a scissors was good enough for Emily Brontë,
then it's good enough for me'.

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) notes that using scissors with plural concord is "the usual form." However the same dictionary notes that scissors is also used with singular concord and does not describe this as dialectal or anything that might be considered non-standard. And examples range from 1565 to 2001, including:

1565 T. Cooper Thesaurus at Forfex A sisers, or sheares.

1847 E. Brontë Wuthering Heights I. ix. 164 Now, don't you think the lad would be handsomer cropped?.. Get me a scissors.

1909 Ophthalmol. 5 43 The scissors is inserted into the duct and the cut made as low down as possible.

You might notice this last usage is from the field of ophthalmology.

Google Books provides plenty of other examples of scissors being used with singular concord, including several instances in the medical field. For example:

With a scissors the surgical fascia is incised for 2-3 cm above the suprasternal notch, ...

and

With a scissors, divide the slip of the diaphragm that attaches to the posterior surface of the xiphoid, ...

From Manual of Pulmonary Surgery (Comprehensive Manuals of Surgical Specialties) by by E.W. Humphrey and D.L. McKeown (2012).

As in your example from the Oxford Dictionary online (borrowed from American Family Physician (link)) there are many uses of singular concord with regard to "medical scissors," but contemporary usage is not limited to this. But singular concord remains the "unusual form" (my quotes).

Answer 2

According to the OED, scissors has a long history of use with a singular concordance (see examples below). Although the New English Dictionary (1910) - the original title of the Oxford English Dictionary - marks this sense as erroneous.

1565 T. Cooper Thesaurus at Forfex A sisers, or sheares.

1847 E. Brontë Wuthering Heights I. ix. 164 Now, don't you think the lad would be handsomer cropped?.. Get me a scissors.

2001 Independent 27 Dec. 12/4 Introduce the point of a scissors into the soft part.

(What a word! So many ways to spell it, according to the OED including cizers, cissors, chizors, shizzors, scithers, scidders and (my favourite) sizzers (Daniel Defoe, 1719).)

Answer 3

You're right, the sentence contains a plural form of the noun, so it should read as:

Suture scissors were used

You may modify the phrase to a singular form:

A pair of suture scissors was used