pair of tongs vs tongs

pair of tongs

noun
  • A tool used for picking things up without touching them with the hands or fingers, consisting of two slats or grips hinged at the end or in the middle, and sometimes including a spring to open the grips. 

tongs

noun
  • An instrument or tool used for picking things up without touching them with the hands or fingers, consisting of two slats or grips hinged at the end or in the middle, and sometimes including a spring to open the grips. 

  • A large scissors-like two-piece center-hinged forged-iron implement with oval-loop handles and with pointed tips turned inward (in the same plane as and perpendicular to the handles) to facilitate lifting and carrying a block of ice. Often called ice tongs. 

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