Vise
mechanical apparatus used to secure an object to allow work to be performed on it
A vise or vice (British English) is a mechanical apparatus used to secure an object to allow work to be performed on it. Vises have two parallel jaws, one fixed and the other movable, threaded in and out by a screw and lever. The jaws are often flat but may have grooves, adapt to the shape of the workpiece or be custom made.
A vise grip is not a vise but a pair of lever-actuated locking pliers.
Etymology
The etymology of vise can be tracked via Middle English vys Anglo-French vyz from Latin vitis "vine". The tight grip of the mechanical device was likened to that of the twines of the plant.
Types
Face
A face vise is the standard woodworking vise, always securely attached to a workbench flush with its work surface. Its jaws are made of wood or metal, the latter usually faced with wood, called cheeks, to avoid marring the work. The movable jaw may include a retractable dog to hold work against a bench dog.
A "quick-release" woodworker's vise employs a split nut that allows the screw to engage or disengage with a half-turn of the handle.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Vise” as mechanical apparatus used to secure an object to allow work to be performed on it. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 3, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q475638. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vise” 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.