pruning shears
- noun
- /ˈpruːnɪŋ ʃɪrz/
- Before planting new flowers, make sure to clean your pruning shears for best results.
- a pair of pruning shears
- using pruning shears
There's fruit on it right now, but I'm still holding some pruning shears and I'm going to cut it.
- There's fruit on it right now, but I'm still holding some pruning shears and I'm going to cut it.
Examples
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I need pruning shears.
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Anyone seen my pruning shears?
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That's why I wear these funny clothes and carry these pruning shears as part of my job.
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See the way the handle on those pruning shears matches her gardening clogs?
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There's fruit on it right now, but I'm still holding some pruning shears and I'm going to cut it.
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We worked side by side while my grandmother scurried about her flower garden, singing Italian songs and keeping time with her pruning shears.
Fiction book (1995) -
Shelby decided to give it that opportunity, so he took his pruning shears inside the house, leaving the front gate open for the dog to exit through.
Fiction book (2002) -
The tub of the day rests snugly therein, along with a pair of gloves and pruning shears.
Blog text (27) -
I used my pruning shears to trim the overgrown branches in the garden.
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Using pruning shears, she carefully shaped the rose bushes into perfect form.
Synonyms
Large strong scissors for cutting thick things like hedges or cloth
How Long
Surface Forms
Morphology
The noun phrase is compositionally built from 'prune' (to trim plants) + 'shears' (large scissors), so its meaning — scissors used for pruning — is directly derivable from the constituents. This is a common, cross-linguistic instrument noun formation and would be readily understood by a B1 learner who knows the two words.
Etymology
Pruning shears comes from gardening: they are strong, hand-held scissors called shears used for pruning, which means 'cutting back' dead or old parts of a plant. So the name simply describes the hand tool used to cut small branches and stems.