The article talks about what pince-nez is, when this device appeared and how it differs from ordinary glasses.
Ancient times
Life on Earth has existed for several billion years, during this time many biological species have changed on the planet, and if we consider even the most primitive of them, then their structure, action and coherence seem incredible. Unfortunately, all living beings are far from ideal, and there is nothing to say about a person. And one of the defects that people acquire in the process of life (in rare cases - immediately after birth) is poor eyesight. There are many reasons why this happens. In our time, farsightedness, myopia, and so on have learned to treat, but this was far from always the case, and for a long time such devices as pince-nez were in use. So what is pince-nez? And how is it different from glasses? We will talk about this in this article.
Definition
This word has French roots, and the device itself first appears in culture (paintings, poems) since the middle of the 16th century. And it is a special glasses that do not have behind-the-ear temples, and they are attached to the nose by means of a spring clip. Now we know what pince-nez is.
Butsuch glasses are not the first device used by people to correct vision. For example, in ancient Rome, many carried pieces of special glass with them, through which they looked at especially small or distant objects. And by the way, the emperor Nero himself used a concave emerald when watching gladiator fights. Apparently, thus correcting his myopia. So we sorted out the question of what pince-nez is. But let's look at the history of the appearance of this device in more detail, and also analyze the gender of this word.
History
As already mentioned, the pince-nez lenses were held on the bridge of the nose with a special clamp, which could be rigid and fixed or adjustable - changing the distance between the lenses, the height of the location, and so on. And of course, the clamp itself was made of some fairly soft material. True, it was still not possible to wear the product for a long time and comfortably.
However, in the middle of the 19th century, when new, stronger and lighter materials began to be used in the manufacture of pince-nez, this made it possible to wear them with greater convenience. And this gave a new impetus to the spread of this device as a style item and an optical accessory.
In those days, pince-nez were often made from materials such as horn, wood, rubber, celluloid, precious metals, and more. Initially, the lens openings themselves had a round shape, but in the same 19th century. oval-shaped pince-nez came into fashion.
For ease of use and wearing, a cord or chain was attached to some models. The latter, by the way,usually attached to clothing, which avoided loss of the device. And by the way, you can often meet the question of what kind of pince-nez. According to the dictionary, the word is neuter.
Recent history
By the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, pince-nez became fashionable, and was used by quite different segments of the population. And often it was used as a kind of accessory, even in cases where a person had normal vision. Therefore, pince-nez with ordinary glasses sometimes appeared on sale, or they could be ordered specially.
Pince-nez was also used by representatives of the Russian royal family: a photograph from the 1860s shows Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, on whose nose you can see this optical device.
It was distributed all over the world, but especially in Europe, where it became an indispensable attribute of secular life. Both men and women used it, but, of course, special models were produced for both, differing in appearance, the presence of some kind of jewelry, etc. In addition to the device that helped to see better, the pince-nez was a kind of symbol of intelligence, education and culture. It was used by such politicians as Beria, Trotsky, Molotov and others.
Decommissioning
The fashion for pennies continued until the 50s of the XX century, but already during the Second World War, their popularity began to fall sharply. There are several reasons for this - new models of ordinary glasses (includingsunscreen), and just a change of fashion. So we figured out what this accessory was used for, the gender of the word “pince-nez” and its varieties.
In our time, pince-nez is practically not used, but still there are outrageous lovers of antiquity who wear it. But now it is just a matter of style, because in terms of convenience, pince-nez is very much inferior to ordinary glasses with temples, and even more so to contact lenses. In addition, modern methods make it possible to correct farsightedness and myopia very simply and quickly, for example, using laser vision correction.
So we sorted out the question of what pince-nez is, and found out the gender of this word. We hope you find this information useful.
