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单词 sheer
释义

sheer

See also: Sheer and sheer-

English

WOTD – 1 July 2007

Pronunciation

  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˈʃɪə/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ʃiɹ/
  • Audio (US)(file)
  • Audio (AU)(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)
  • Homophones: Scheer, shear

Etymology 1

From Middle English shere, scheere, schere, skere, from Old English sċear (“scissors,shears”); merged with Middle English schyre, schire, shire, shir, from Old English sċīr (“clear, bright; brilliant, gleaming, shining, splendid, resplendent; pure”) and Middle English skyr, from Old Norse skírr (“pure, bright, clear”)[1], both from Proto-Germanic *skīriz (“pure, sheer”) and *skairiz, from Proto-Indo-European *sḱēy- (“luster, gloss, shadow”).

Cognate with Danish skær, German schier (“sheer”), Dutch schier (“almost”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌴𐌹𐍂𐍃 (skeirs, “clear, lucid”). Outside Germanic, cognate to Albanian hir (“grace, beauty; goodwill”).

Adjective

sheer (comparative sheerer or more sheer, superlative sheerest or most sheer)

  1. (textiles) Very thin or transparent.
    • 1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 17, in The Subtle Minotaur‎:
      “She sheathed her legs in the sheerest of the nylons that her father had brought back from the Continent, and slipped her feet into the toeless, high-heeled shoes of black suède.”
    • 1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 53:
      She was cunningly dressed in a black, sheer gown with gold ornaments showing her figure to perfection.
    Her light, sheer dress caught everyone’s attention.
  2. (obsolete) Pure in composition; unmixed; unadulterated.
    • c. 1590–1592, William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act INTRODUCTION, scene ii]:
      If she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lying’st knave in Christendom.
    • 1595 December 9 (first known performance), William Shakespeare, “The life and death of King Richard the Second”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act V, scene iii]:
      Thou sheer, immaculate and silver fountain, / From when this stream through muddy passages / Hath held his current and defiled himself!
  3. (by extension) Downright; complete; pure.
    • 1918, W. B. Maxwell, chapter 2, in The Mirror and the Lamp‎:
      That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence.
    • 2012, July 15. Richard Williams in Guardian Unlimited, Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track
      Cycling's complex etiquette contains an unwritten rule that riders in contention for a race win should not be penalised for sheer misfortune.
    I think it is sheer genius to invent such a thing.
    This poem is sheer nonsense.
    Through technological wizardry and sheer audacity, Google has shown how we can transform the intellectual riches of our libraries […] .
  4. Used to emphasize the amount or degree of something.
    • 2012 October 31, David M. Halbfinger, "New Jersey Reels From Storm's Thrashing," New York Times (retrieved 20 September 2021):
      Perhaps as startling as the sheer toll was the devastation to some of the state’s well-known locales. Boardwalks along the beach in Seaside Heights, Belmar and other towns on the Jersey Shore were blown away. Amusement parks, arcades and restaurants all but vanished. Bridges to barrier islands buckled, preventing residents from even inspecting the damage to their property.
    The army's sheer size made it impossible to resist.
  5. Very steep; almost vertical or perpendicular.
    It was a sheer drop of 180 feet.
Synonyms
  • (very thin or transparent): diaphanous, see-through, thin
  • (pure, unmixed): pure, undiluted
  • (downright, complete): downright, mere (obsolete), pure, unmitigated
  • (straight up and down): perpendicular, steep, vertical
Derived terms
  • sheerly
  • sheerness
  • sheer-to-waist
Translations
pure — see pure

Adverb

sheer (comparative more sheer, superlative most sheer)

  1. (archaic) Clean; quite; at once.
    • 1791, William Cowper, The Iliad of Homer, translation of original by Homer, Book XVI:
      Hector the ashen lance of Ajax smote / With his broad faulchion, at the nether end, / And lopp’d it sheer.
    • 1888, Francis Hastings Doyle, “Hylas”, in The Return of the Guards: And Other Poems, translation of original by Theocritus:
      Swift into the dark stream at once he fell, / As the red star at once falls swift and sheer / From sky to sea
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], OCLC 228722708; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, OCLC 230729554:
      Descending , and in half cut sheer
Translations

Noun

sheer (plural sheers)

  1. A sheer curtain or fabric.
    Use sheers to maximize natural light.
Translations

Etymology 2

Perhaps from Dutch scheren (“to move aside, skim”); see also shear.

Noun

sheer (plural sheers)

  1. (nautical) The curve of the main deck or gunwale from bow to stern.
  2. (nautical) An abrupt swerve from the course of a ship.
Translations

Verb

sheer (third-person singular simple present sheers, present participle sheering, simple past and past participle sheered)

  1. (chiefly nautical) To swerve from a course.
    A horse sheers at a bicycle.
    • 1899 March, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number MI, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], OCLC 1042815524, part II:
      I sheered her well inshore—the water being deepest near the bank, as the sounding–pole informed me.
    • 2018 October 17, Drachinifel, Last Ride of the High Seas Fleet - Battle of Texel 1918‎, archived from the original on 4 August 2022, retrieved 4 August 2022, 15:10 from the start:
      Seydlitz correctly identifies the larger shell splashes as coming from the two "large light cruisers" at the rear, and takes aim. Moments later, Courageous sheers out of line, smoke and steam venting through a massive hole in her side, the shells having blasted right through whatever excuse for armor was present and detonated amidst the boiler rooms. She is doomed.
  2. (obsolete) To shear.
    • 1668, John Dryden, Annus Mirabilis: The Year of Wonders, M. DC. LXVI. […], London: […] Henry Herringman, […], OCLC 1064438096, (please specify the stanza number):
      So thick, our navy scarce could sheer their way
Translations

Further reading

  • sheer at OneLook Dictionary Search
  • Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “sheer”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.

References

  1. “Merriam-Webster online Dictionary”, in (please provide the title of the work)‎, accessed 6 August 2009, archived from the original on 2011-11-11

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for sheer in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)

Anagrams

  • Esher, Herse, Rhees, Shere, heers, here's, heres, herse

Burushaski

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): [ʃeːɾ]

Noun

sheer (plural sheerisho)

  1. lion

References

Sadaf Munshi (2015), “Word Lists”, in Burushaski Language Documentation Project‎.

Middle English

Noun

sheer

  1. Alternative form of shere
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