Forceps
handheld, hinged instrument used for grasping and holding objects
Forceps (pl.: forceps or considered a plural noun without a singular, often a pair of forceps; the Latin plural forcipes is no longer recorded in most dictionaries) are a handheld, hinged instrument used for grasping and holding objects. Forceps are used when fingers are too large to grasp small objects or when many objects need to be held at one time while the hands are used to perform a task. The term "forceps" is used almost exclusively in the fields of biology and medicine. Outside of biology and medicine, people usually refer to forceps as tweezers, tongs, pliers, clips or clamps.
Mechanically, forceps employ the principle of the lever to grasp and apply pressure.
Depending on their function, basic surgical forceps can be categorized into the following groups:
Non-disposable forceps. They should withstand various kinds of physical and chemical effects of body fluids, secretions, cleaning agents, and sterilization methods.
Disposable forceps. They are usually made of lower-quality materials or plastics which are disposed after use.
Surgical forceps are commonly made of high-grade carbon steel, which ensures they can withstand repeated sterilization in high-temperature autoclaves.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Forceps” is handheld, hinged instrument used for grasping and holding objects. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Forceps, handheld and hinged, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “handheld, hinged instrument used for grasping and holding objects” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1378235. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Forceps” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.