Word Confusion: Pincher vs Pincer vs Pinscher

Posted April 28, 2016 by Kathy Davie in Author Resources, Self-Editing, Word Confusions, Writing

Revised as of
24 Sept 2022

A spider’s pincers may pinch, and while the spider himself may be a pincher, he’s not using pinchers, but pincers to pinch.

Hmmm, sounds like one of those alliterations, doesn’t it?

Actually, all my huff and dudgeon deflated when I ran across Merriam-Webster’s note that pinchers and pincers are interchangeable when it comes to pinching. I’d still stick with pincer when discussing military strategy, though. Even if the movement does pinch the enemy.

Then I ran across pinscher . . . what’s a girl gonna do?

Word Confusions . . .

. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end. Consider sharing this Word Confusion with friends by tweeting it.

Pincher Pincer Pinscher

boy's face contorted by pinching

The Pinchers by lincolnblues, via PhotoPin and under their CC license, is courtesy of Jeff Merrell in his post, “Pinching My Digital Networked Learning Self”.


A pair of old pincers

Klieste klasicke by Baran Ivo is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Quite the effective looking pincers.


Miniature Pinscher

Miniature Pinscher is Sebastian Wallin’s own work under the GFDL or CC BY 3.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons.

He’s quite the alert pinscher.

Part of Grammar:
Noun

Plural: pincers, pinchers

Alternative spelling: pincher

Noun

Plural: pincers, pinchers

Alternative spelling: pincer

Noun

Plural: pinschers

A.k.a., Doberman pinscher, Dobermann pinscher

The plural is used with a plural verb


Noun:
Someone or something that pinches
Usually pincers and used with a plural verb
Also a pair of pincers


A tool made of two pieces of metal bearing blunt concave jaws that are arranged like the blades of scissors, used for gripping and pulling things

  • [Zoology] Front claw of a lobster, crab, or similar crustacean
Any of a breed of short-haired medium-sized dogs of German origin
Examples:
Noun:
He was a known pincher.

Watch out for Mary. She’s a pincher.

The pincher of my peach pies was finally caught!

Think about it. Spock was a pincher.

Grab the pincers if you want to pull that out.

The German blitzkrieg was the pincer movement at its most effective.

Look out for those pincers!

Don’t let the crab get his pincers in you.

“He attacked me from behind again, this time with his pincers” (Secombe).

“Often the Stilken will have great hooks or pincers in the place of forearms, which it uses with facility to seize its prey” (Nix).

The standard pinscher is an ancestor of the Dobermann.

Pinschers were originally developed to go after rats on farms and for fighting or guarding.

Those pinschers always looks so scary when used as guard dogs in movies.

Derivatives:
Adjective: pinchable, unpinched
Noun: penny-pincher, pinch, pinches
Verb: pinch, pinched, pinches, pinching
Adjective: pincerlike
History of the Word:
From Middle English (as a verb), from an Old Northern French variant of the Old French pincier meaning to pinch. From Middle English from the Anglo-Norman French, which is from the Old French pincier meaning to pinch. The first known use was in 1917.

Named for Friedrich Ludwig Dobermann, a German tax collector with a need for protection.

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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Resources for Pincher vs Pincer vs Pinscher

Apple Dictionary.com

Merriam-Webster: pinscher

Nix, Garth. Lirael: Daughter of the Clayr. ASIN: B014S2QRPW. <https://amzn.to/3rbzAy9>.

Secombe, Fred. Goodbye Curate. HarperCollins, 1993. ISBN-13: ‎978-0006276852. <https://amzn.to/3BP13Lk>.

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Pinterest Photo Credits

Spock at Console is courtesy of NBC Television and is in the public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. His eyes were manipulated to look toward the Dobermans, which is courtesy of PublicDomainPictures, is under the CC0 license, via Pixabay. It was cropped, and its background was removed. The poor Lobster, <https://pxhere.com/en/photo/438296>, has been severely cropped, and its claws manipulated to superimpose over Spock’s hands and grasp the clipboard. It is courtesy of Pxhere and is under the CC0 license.

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