Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) a foolish, incompetent, gossipy or objectionable person.

1871		Atlantic Monthly Nov. 566/2: Pootiest band of hogs in Tulare County! There’s littler of the real scissor-bill nor Mexican racer stock than any band I have ever seen in the State [DA].
1910		Salt Lake Herald Republican (UH) 17 Apr. 3/2: ‘Say, what kind of scissor-bill are you?’ inquired Mr Woods, impolitely. ‘I’m no scissor-bill,’ rertorted Mr Hanson.
1913		‘Scissor Bill’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 547: Scissor Bill, he is a little dippy.
1918		Orlando Eve. Star (FL) 8 Aug. 3/2: Many of the 146 witnesses [...] told of ‘Hi-Jack’ or string-arm methods of the oragnization [i.e. the I.W.W.] [...] ‘Scissor-Bills,’ for non-members, were thrown from trains, locked in sheds [etc].
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 107: They’d better keep their distance, them measly scissor-bills.
1930		(con. 1900s–10s) Dos Passos 42nd Parallel in USA (1966) 100: I heard you staggerin’ round here goin’ to bed like any goddam scissorbill.
1936		R.F. Adams Cowboy Lingo 23: A ‘big scissor-bill’ was one who did not do his work well.
1949		Boston Globe 14 Aug. 9/5: What you young scissors-bills lookin’ for now? [DA].
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 185/2: Scissorbill. (Near West, mid-West, and Central U.S.) [...] 2. A victim or a potential victim of thieves.

2. a wealthy or privileged person.

1913		Industrial Worker 1 May 5/3: Scissorbill is a localized slang term. Here it refers to the ‘home-guard’ worker, who is filled with bourgeoise [sic] ideas and ethics. It ordinarily describes a worker who has some source of income other than his wages [DA].
1926		N. Klein ‘Hobo Lingo’ in AS I:12 652: Scissor bill—one without knowledge of the labor problem. A farmer who can clip coupons. One who has struck oil.
1930		‘Dean Stiff’ Milk and Honey Route 163: The line in waiting is usually monopolized by the village scissorbills while the hobo [...] stands in the background.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 201: scissorbill A farmer.
1964		(con. 1920s–40s) in J.L. Kornbluh Rebel Voices.

3. attrib. use of sense 2.

1914

‘Overalls and Snuff’ in Lingenfelter et al. Songs of the Amer. West (1968) 497: From these scissorbill hop barons, we are taking no more bluff.

4. (US) a farmer, a peasant.

1908		University Missourian (MO) 7 Oct. 1/2: Reduced to a disreoputable hat, flannel shirt, one pair of pants - not trousers - [...] in accordance with the scissorbills who thrive in this community.
1936		Mencken Amer. Lang. (4th edn) 582: An employment-agent is a shark, and a farmer or other poor simpleton is a scissor-bill.
1991		(con. 1920s) O.D. Brooks Legs 58: A group of straw-hatted scissorbills stopped on the pillared portico.

5. (US tramp, also scissorsbill) anyone unwilling to join a union or otherwise improve their lot [ from the fig. idea of the worker ‘cutting off his nose to spite his face’ (P.S. Fromer, History of the Labor Movement in the US, 1965)].

1905		Sequachee Valley News (TN) 14 Dec. 2/2: I can tell you what a scissorbill is. He is a man that takes the obligation and goes back on his fellow-men.
1913		Voice of the People (New Orleans) 11 Dec. 4: ‘What’s the I.W.W. ever done’ [...] our Irish lood flashed into lafter as in our imagination we saw one of Kilroy’s scissorbills trying to take ‘Mental’ exercise.
1921		P. & T. Casey Gay-cat 192: Scissor-bills what don’t know enuff about their own welfare to jine the Union.
1927		W. Edge Main Stem 7: Guess you don’t know what a scissorbill is? It’s the name the I.W.W. have for a worker who loves his wife, his boss, and the capitalist system at large.
1936		K. Mackenzie Living Rough 119: Don’t be a scissorbill [...] Why don’t you devote your abilities to help bring on the revolution?
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 816: scissors bill – An outsider to any circle or clique; an inefficient worker.
1965		P.S. Foner Hist. of the Labor Movement in the US 119: [...] a worker who cuts off his nose to spite his face, hence ‘scissorbill.’.
1970		Current Sl. V:1 12: Scissorbill, n. Strikebeaker, scab.
1980		in S. Terkel Amer. Dreams (1982) 18: The guests were boomer firemen [...] ex-Wobblies, as well as assorted scissorbills.

6. in attrib. use of sense 5.

1906		Sequachee Valley News (TN) 4 Jan. 2/2: We call the men that went back on their oath, scissorbill scabs [...] Our name is union.
1914		Voice of the People (New Orleans) 5 Nov. 3/4: [headline] Scissorbill Philosophy. ‘The Butte Miners Union ruined the City of butte.’ No use for me to comment.

7. (US tramp, also scissorsbill) a railroad detective or police officer.

1923		N. Anderson Hobo 23: All their enemies [...] are town clowns, sky pilots, Bible ranters, bulls, politicians, home guards, hicks, stool pigeons, systems, scissor bills, and capitalists.
1926		J. Black You Can’t Win (2000) 111: When a bums’ ‘convention’ is to be held, the jungle is first cleared of all outsiders such as ‘gay cats,’ ‘dingbats,’ ‘whangs,’ ‘bindle stiffs’, ‘jungle buzzards’, and ‘scissors bills.’.

8. (US tramp) an itinerant knife-sharpener.

1923

N. Anderson Hobo 99: The Scissor Bill is a man who carries with him tools to sharpen saws, knives, razors, etc. Often he pushes a grindstone along the street.