Tweezers

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Tweezers are small hand tools used for grasping objects too small to be easily handled with the human fingers. Tweezers are thumb-driven forceps most likely derived from tongs used to grab or hold hot objects since the dawn of recorded history. In a scientific or medical context, they are normally referred to as just "forceps", a name that is used together with other grasping surgical instruments that resemble pliers, pincers and scissors-like clamps.

Tweezers make use of two third-class levers connected at one fixed end (the fulcrum point of each lever), with the pincers at the others. When used, they are commonly held with one hand in a pen grip between the thumb and index finger (sometimes also the middle finger), with the top end resting on the first dorsal interosseous muscle at the webspace between the thumb and index finger. Spring tension holds the grasping ends apart until finger pressure is applied. This provides an extended pinch and allows the user to easily grasp, manipulate and quickly release small or delicate objects with readily variable pressure.

People commonly use tweezers for such tasks as plucking hair from the face or eyebrows, often using the term eyebrow tweezers. Other common uses for tweezers are as a tool to manipulate small objects, including for example small, particularly surface-mount, electronic parts, and small mechanical parts for models and precision mechanisms. Stamp collectors use tweezers (stamp tongs) to handle postage stamps which, while large enough to pick up by hand, could be damaged by handling; the jaws of stamp tongs are smooth. Another example of a specialized use is picking out the flakes of gold in gold panning. Tweezers are also used in kitchens for food presentation^[1] to remove bones from fillets of fish in a process known as pin boning, and are as tongs used to serve pieces of cake to restaurant patrons.