forceps

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. An instrument resembling a pair of pincers or tongs, used for grasping, manipulating, or extracting, especially such an instrument used by a surgeon.
2. n. A pincerlike pair of movable appendages at the posterior end of the abdomen in certain insects, such as earwigs.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. An instrument, such as pincers or tongs, used for seizing, holding, or moving objects which it would be impracticable to manipulate with the fingers. Such instruments are used by watchmakers and jewelers in delicate manipulations; by dentists for the forcible extraction of teeth; by accoucheurs for grasping and steadying the head of the fetus in delivery, or for extracting the fetus; by surgeons for grasping and holding parts in dissection, for taking up an artery, etc.; and in blowpipe analysis (and then platinum-pointed) to hold the fragment of the mineral whose fusibility, etc., is being tested.
2. n. In zoology and anatomy, some part or process of the body like a forceps; any forcipate organ. Specifically— In anatomy, the fibers passing backward on each side from the splenium of the corpus callosum to the posterior and upper part of the occipital lobes.
3. n. See the qualifying words.

Wiktionary

1. n. An instrument used in surgery or medical procedures for grasping and holding objects, similar to tongs or pincers. (With singular or plural concord.)

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A pair of pinchers, or tongs; an instrument for grasping, holding firmly, or exerting traction upon, bodies which it would be inconvenient or impracticable to seize with the fingers, especially one for delicate operations, as those of watchmakers, surgeons, accoucheurs, dentists, etc.
2. n. (Zoöl.) The caudal forceps-shaped appendage of earwigs and some other insects. See Earwig.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. an extractor consisting of a pair of pincers used in medical treatment (especially for the delivery of babies)