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shear

Syllabification: (shear)
Pronunciation: /SHi(ə)r/
Translate shear | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of 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.

Derivatives

shearer

noun

Origin:

Old English sceran (originally in the sense 'cut through with a weapon'), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German scheren, from a base meaning 'divide, shear, shave'

The two verbs shear and sheer are sometimes confused: see sheer2 (usage).

Spelling help

The different forms of this verb are: (shears, shearing, sheared; the past participle is shorn or sheared).

Do not confuse shear with sheer. Shear means 'cut the wool off a sheep'. As a verb, sheer means 'change course quickly' (the road sheered off into the darkness); sheer is also an adjective chiefly meaning 'nothing but; absolute' (the sheer joy of skydiving).

shear in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of shear in the British & World English dictionary
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