scissors vs shearing

scissors

noun
  • A scissors hold. 

  • A method of skating with one foot significantly in front of the other. 

  • A tool used for cutting thin material, consisting of two crossing blades attached at a pivot point in such a way that the blades slide across each other when the handles are closed. 

  • An instance of the above dogfighting maneuver. 

  • An attacking move conducted by two players; the player without the ball runs from one side of the ball carrier, behind the ball carrier, and receives a pass from the ball carrier on the other side. 

  • A hand with the index and middle fingers open (a handshape resembling scissors), that beats paper and loses to rock. It beats lizard and loses to Spock in rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock. 

  • An exercise in which the legs are switched back and forth, suggesting the motion of scissors. 

  • A type of defensive maneuver in dogfighting, involving repeatedly turning one's aircraft towards that of the attacker in order to force them to overshoot. 

shearing

noun
  • The act or operation of dividing with shears. 

  • Deformation by forces acting in opposite directions. 

  • The process of making a vertical side cutting in working into a face of coal. 

  • The act or operation of reaping. 

  • The act or operation of clipping with shears or a shearing machine, as the wool from sheep, or the nap from cloth. 

  • The material cut off in this way. 

  • The process of preparing shear steel; tilting. 

adj
  • Tending to cut or tear. 

How often have the words scissors and shearing occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )