Obs. Also pl. tweeses, twizes, twises; rare in sing. [Aphetic f. etweese (1657), = etuys, etuis, pl. of ETUI, ETWEE. See also TWEE1.
The form-history in Eng. is not quite clear, but app. the plural form etuis, etwees was taken also as sing. and spelt etweese, and this aphetized to tweese.]
A case of small instruments, an etui; also pl. instruments kept or carried about in a small case. Occas. a pair (= set) of tweezes.
1622. Mabbe, trans. Aleman’s Guzman d’Alf., II. (1623), 130. Whether shee would buy a very fine paire of twizes which we … had cut from another gentlewomans girdle … having ground and whet them … and fitted them with a case.
1623–4. Middleton & Rowley, Span. Gipsy, II. i. Take anything…, purses, knives, handkerchers, rosaries, tweezes, any toy.
1632. Sherwood, s.v. Tweese, A Surgeons tweese (or box of instruments).
[cf. 1611. Cotgr., Pennarol de Chirurgien, a Chirurgians Case or Ettuy; the box wherein he carries his Instruments.]
1638. Ford, Fancies, I. ii. I will … break the teeth of thy combs, poison thy camphire-balls,… be-tallow thy tweezes.
c. 1645. Howell, Lett., I. xvii. 32. I send you … the French Bever and Tweeses you writ for.
1665. Boyle, Occas. Refl., IV. xv. (1848), 255. Drawing a little Penknife out of a pair of Twises I then chanced to have about me.
1672. Descr. Lake Geneva, in Misc. Cur. (1708), III. 409. There are found … Knives, and Needles as thick as Bodkins of tweeses.
1681. W. Robertson, Phraseol. Gen. (1693), 206. A barber’s tweese, or case of instruments.
