In short, the plural of scissors is, well, scissors. It’s already in the plural form.
The word is descended from the Latin cīsōria, which actually did have a singular form: cīsōrium. This evolved into cisoires in Old French, then sisoures in Middle English. And then about a century after it became sisoures, it further evolved to become scissors, influenced by the Medieval Latin scissor, which meant tailor.
Scissors is what’s called as a defective noun (also called plurale tantum). Pants is another example of a defective noun, as are glasses and tweezers.
Well, that leads us to the next question. If scissors is the plural version of the word, what is the singular version?
There hasn’t been one for about 600 years. Today, when we need to refer to a singular object (as compared to a pile of scissors), we append it with “pair of”, as in “this pair of scissors”.
When using scissors, treat it as a plural:
- Those scissors are sharp.
- Scissors are used to cut out paper dolls.
- The scissors were missing from the sewing kit.
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