shear

verb (past participle shorn /SHôrn/ or sheared)

• 1 [with object] cut the wool off (a sheep or other animal).
• cut off (something such as hair, wool, or grass), with scissors or shears:I’ll shear off all that fleece
• (be shorn of) have something cut off:they were shorn of their hair figurativethe richest man in the U.S. was shorn of nearly $2 billion

• 2break off or cause to break off, owing to a structural strain: [no object]:the derailleur sheared and jammed in the rear wheel [with object]:the left wing had been almost completely sheared off

noun

• a strain in the structure of a substance produced by pressure, when its layers are laterally shifted in relation to each other. See also wind shear.