Nail clippers - Nail clippers

Japanese: つめ切り(爪切り) - つめきり

A tool for cutting nails. In the old days, nails were cut with a small knife or sharpened with a whetstone called a tsumato. The Tosa Nikki also contains a passage about avoiding cutting nails on the day of the Rat, which shows that there were tools for cutting nails. With the spread of Japanese scissors in the Edo period, they also began to be used for cutting nails. In the Meiji period, special grip scissors for cutting nails, which were made as pocket tools for geisha, became popular and were used by the general public. Folding nail clippers that use the principle of leverage are also called nail clippers. They were introduced from Europe and the United States in the Taisho period, and domestic production began around 1935.

Source: Heibonsha World Encyclopedia, 2nd Edition Information

Japanese:

つめを切る道具。古くは，小刀でつめを切ったり，爪磨（つまと）と呼ばれる砥石（といし）でといだらしい。《土佐日記》にもつめを切るのに子（ね）の日を避けた，という記述があり，つめを切る道具があったことがわかる。江戸時代に入り和ばさみの普及にともない，つめを切るのにも使われるようになった。明治時代には，芸妓の懐中道具として作られた，つめ切り専用の握りばさみが流行し，一般にも普及した。てこの原理を使った，折りたたみ式のつめ切りはネイル･クリッパーnail clipperともいい，大正時代に欧米より伝えられて，1935年ころから国内生産が始まった。

出典　株式会社平凡社世界大百科事典第２版について　情報

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