sb. pl. Also 7 twizers, twezers, tweesers. [An extended form of tweezes, pl. of TWEEZE (cf. TROUSE sb.2 and TROUSERS). See also TWEEZER sb.]
† 1. A set or case of small instruments. Also a pair (= set) of tweezers. Obs. rare.
1654. Dorothy Osborne, Lett. to Sir W. Temple (1888), 223. Did not you say once you knew where good French tweezers were to be had? Pray send me a pair; they shall cut no love.
1662. Pepys, Diary, 20 June. Bought me a pair of tweezers, cost me 14/-.
1686. trans. Chardin’s Trav. Persia, 122. Ribbands, Paper, Needles, Twizers, Knives and Scissars.
1688. R. L’Estrange, Brief Hist. Times, III. 121. A Present of Twezers, and a Case of Knives to Father Sweetman at Madrid.
1742. Mrs. Delany, in Life & Corr. (1861), II. 173. They much admired my tweezers and the trinkets that were in them.
2. Small pincers or nippers (orig. as included in the contents of an etui) used for plucking out hairs from the face or for grasping minute objects. Also a pair of tweezers.
1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, III. vii. 110. If he had but spirit enough to have drawne, the very sight of his Tweezers would have put the Don to the Roares. Ibid., III. xii. 156. Mr. Barber with his Razor or his Tweezers, could not be so expeditious.
a. 1704. T. Brown, Lett. to Gent. & Ladies, Wks. 1709, III. II. 122. His Eye-brows are fair, but over large,… I mean, when the Tweezers have not play’d their Part.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 489. They pluck up the hairs … by the roots with tweezers.
1821. Byron, Juan, V. lxxx. With some small aid from scissars, paint, and tweezers, He look’d in almost all respects a maid.
1863. Lyell, Antiq. Man, ii. 28. In it were found … a pair of tweezers in bronze.
1904. Mission Field, June, 71. Tweezers were used by the Indian men to pull out every hair that grew on their faces.
b. transf. in various senses.
1654. Gayton, Pleas. Notes, II. ii. 40. Until these unpar’d nailes, these sharp and tearing tweesers I fasten on his face.
1889. Science-Gossip, XXV. 118. That the use of the ‘tweezers,’ borne by the ear-wig at the end of the abdomen, was considered somewhat obscure.
