Binoculars are a tool you hold up to both eyes to make far-away things look closer and clearer. They are like a pair of small telescopes joined together, one for each eye. Because both eyes work together, the picture has depth — you can sense distance — in a way a single long telescope does not. People take them to watch birds, ships, a football match from high seats, the stage from the back, or the moon. You turn a wheel in the middle to focus. The word is almost always plural, like scissors or trousers: these binoculars, a pair of binoculars. Saying 'a binocular' sounds odd to most speakers, though the adjective binocular just means 'for two eyes' (binocular vision is the way humans see). They used to be called binocular glasses; the name got shortened. They are not the glasses you wear all day, and they are not a microscope (that is for tiny things close up). A telescope is usually one long tube; binoculars are the two-tube kind you hold.