pince-nez

/ˈpɪn ˌsneɪ/

If your costume for the school play includes wearing pince-nez, never fear: all you need is a small pair of spectacles that clip on your nose.

The most fun about this word, from French for "pinch nose," is pronouncing it in a highly affected way. It denotes a pair of eyeglasses without earpieces that get their grip by spring action on the schnozzle. You're most likely to come across someone wearing pince-nez in an old novel, since they were at the height of their popularity in the nineteenth century.

Definitions of pince-nez

1. noun

   spectacles clipped to the nose by a spring
   type of:

   eyeglasses, glasses, specs, spectacles

   optical instrument consisting of a frame that holds a pair of lenses for correcting defective vision