Scissors or shears are hand-operated cutting tools that consists of a pair of pivoting blades whose sharpened edges slide firmly against and past each other when the handles (shank) on the opposite side of the pivot are squeezed shut, causing the target material in between the blades to be divided by the combined effort of both cutting and shearing. Scissors are usually used for cutting thin materials such as paper, cardboard, metal foil, cloth, rope and wire, although a large variety of scissors/shears exist for specialized purposes, and their design details often dictate which is best for the intended job.
