Chiefly, now only, Sc. dial. Forms: 4 thourkeys, Sc. 5–6 turkas, 6 turkass, turkes, turcase, turcas, 7 turkesse, 9 turkis. [ad. OF. turcaise, -quaise, -queise, turquoise (14–15th c.), terquoise, truquaise, trucoise, mod.F. tricoises, fem. pl. of turcois, -queis, -quois Turkish; prop. tenailles turquoises, Turkish nippers.] A pair of smith’s pincers; pincers or nippers generally; forceps.
1390–1. Earl Derby’s Exped. (Camden), 35. Pro j pare de thourkeys, xij d.
c. 1470. Henry, Wallace, VI. 411. He gert a smyth, with his turkas rycht thar, Pow out his eyne.
1503–4. Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot., II. 419. Ane turcas to tak out teith.
1513. Douglas, Æneis, VIII. vii. 185. Wyth the grippand turkas [v.r. turkes] oft also The glowand lump thai turnit to and fro.
1591. News fr. Scot. (1820), 33. His nailes upon all his fingers were riven and pulled off with an instrument called in Scottich a Turkas, which in England we call a pair of pincers.
1629. Z. Boyd, Last Battle, 534. Like a tooth in the jaw, the deeper roote it hath, the more paine it causeth, when it is drawing out with the Turkesse.
1871. W. Alexander, Johnny Gibb, xxvii. (1873), 62. There’s yersel’, ’t kens nae mair aboot the prenciples o’ the struggle nor that turkis i’ the smith’s sheein [= shoeing] box.
