Tweezers

Definition and stakes

Portrait of R. M. Ballantyne R. M. Ballantyne,  Red Rooney: The Last of the Crew

“ One is called tweezers, an’ is of no earthly use that I know of except to pull the hairs out o’ your nose, which no man in his senses ever wants to do; and the other thing is, I suppose, for borin’ small holes in things—it’s almost as useless. ”
Source: Gutenberg

Thomas Wright,  A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages

“ If these were really the thermæ of the Romans, it is perhaps the hostility of the ascetic part of the Romish clergy which 60 caused them to be discontinued and forgotten. Our cut No. 37 represents a party at their ablutions. We constantly find among the articles in the graves of Anglo-Saxon ladies tweezers, which were evidently intended for eradicating superfluous hairs, a circumstance which contributes to show that they paid special attention to hair-dressing. To judge from the colour of the hair in some of the illuminations, we might be led to suppose that sometimes they stained it. ”
Source: Gutenberg

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