Sheer

7 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Sheer \Sheer\, adv.
     Clean; quite; at once. [Obs.] --Milton.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:



  Sheer \Sheer\, v. t. [See {Shear}.]
     To shear. [Obs.] --Dryden.
     [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Sheer \Sheer\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Sheered}; p. pr. & vb. n.
     {Sheering}.] [D. sheren to shear, cut, withdraw, warp. See
     {Shear}.]
     To decline or deviate from the line of the proper course; to
     turn aside; to swerve; as, a ship sheers from her course; a
     horse sheers at a bicycle.
     [1913 Webster]
  
     {To sheer off}, to turn or move aside to a distance; to move
        away.
  
     {To sheer up}, to approach obliquely.
        [1913 Webster]

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Sheer \Sheer\, a. [OE. shere, skere, pure, bright, Icel. sk?rr;
     akin to sk[imac]rr, AS. sc[imac]r, OS. sk[imac]ri, MHG.
     sch[imac]r, G. schier, Dan. sk?r, Sw. sk[aum]r, Goth. skeirs
     clear, and E. shine. [root]157. See {Shine}, v. i.]
     1. Bright; clear; pure; unmixed. "Sheer ale." --Shak.
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              Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain. --Shak.
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     2. Very thin or transparent; -- applied to fabrics; as, sheer
        muslin.
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     3. Being only what it seems to be; obvious; simple; mere;
        downright; as, sheer folly; sheer nonsense. "A sheer
        impossibility." --De Quincey.
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              It is not a sheer advantage to have several strings
              to one's bow.                         --M. Arnold.
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     4. Stright up and down; vertical; prpendicular.
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              A sheer precipice of a thousand feet. --J. D.
                                                    Hooker.
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              It was at least
              Nine roods of sheer ascent.           --Wordsworth.
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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Sheer \Sheer\, n.
     1. (Naut.)
        (a) The longitudinal upward curvature of the deck,
            gunwale, and lines of a vessel, as when viewed from
            the side.
        (b) The position of a vessel riding at single anchor and
            swinging clear of it.
            [1913 Webster]
  
     2. A turn or change in a course.
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              Give the canoe a sheer and get nearer to the shore.
                                                    --Cooper.
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     3. pl. Shears See {Shear}.
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     {Sheer batten} (Shipbuilding), a long strip of wood to guide
        the carpenters in following the sheer plan.
  
     {Sheer boom}, a boom slanting across a stream to direct
        floating logs to one side.
  
     {Sheer hulk}. See {Shear hulk}, under {Hulk}.
  
     {Sheer plan}, or {Sheer draught} (Shipbuilding), a projection
        of the lines of a vessel on a vertical longitudinal plane
        passing through the middle line of the vessel.
  
     {Sheer pole} (Naut.), an iron rod lashed to the shrouds just
        above the dead-eyes and parallel to the ratlines.
  
     {Sheer strake} (Shipbuilding), the strake under the gunwale
        on the top side. --Totten.
  
     {To break sheer} (Naut.), to deviate from sheer, and risk
        fouling the anchor.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  sheer
       adj 1: complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes
              used informally as intensifiers; "absolute freedom";
              "an absolute dimwit"; "a downright lie"; "out-and-out
              mayhem"; "an out-and-out lie"; "a rank outsider";
              "many right-down vices"; "got the job through sheer
              persistence"; "sheer stupidity" [syn: {absolute}, {downright},
               {out-and-out(a)}, {rank(a)}, {right-down}, {sheer(a)}]
       2: not mixed with extraneous elements; "plain water"; "sheer
          wine"; "not an unmixed blessing" [syn: {plain}, {unmingled},
           {unmixed}]
       3: very steep; having a prominent and almost vertical front; "a
          bluff headland"; "where the bold chalk cliffs of England
          rise"; "a sheer descent of rock" [syn: {bluff}, {bold}]
       4: so thin as to transmit light; "a hat with a diaphanous
          veil"; "filmy wings of a moth"; "gauzy clouds of dandelion
          down"; "gossamer cobwebs"; "sheer silk stockings";
          "transparent chiffon"; "vaporous silks" [syn: {diaphanous},
           {filmy}, {gauzy}, {gossamer}, {see-through}, {transparent},
           {vaporous}, {cobwebby}]
       adv 1: straight up or down without a break [syn: {perpendicularly}]
       2: directly; "he fell sheer into the water"
       v 1: turn sharply; change direction abruptly; "The car cut to the
            left at the intersection"; "The motorbike veered to the
            right" [syn: {swerve}, {curve}, {trend}, {veer}, {slue},
             {slew}, {cut}]
       2: cause to sheer; "She sheered her car around the obstacle"

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  263 Moby Thesaurus words for "sheer":
     aberrancy, aberration, about ship, abrupt, absolute, absolutely,
     airy, all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-out, all-pervading,
     angle, angle off, aplomb, arduous, arrant, at right angles, avert,
     back and fill, bare, bear away, bear off, bear to starboard, beat,
     beat about, bend, bent, bias, blasted, blessed, bluff, bold, born,
     box off, branch off, branching off, break, breakneck, bring about,
     bring round, broad-based, cant, cant round, cast, cast about,
     change course, change the bearing, change the heading, chiffon,
     circuitousness, clarified, clean, clear, clear as crystal,
     come about, complete, comprehensive, confounded, congenital,
     consummate, corner, crook, crystal, crystal-clear, crystalline,
     curve, declination, deep-dyed, deflect, depart from, departure,
     detour, deviance, deviancy, deviate, deviation, deviousness,
     diaphane, diaphanous, digress, digression, dip, discursion,
     distilled, divagate, divagation, divaricate, divarication, diverge,
     divergence, diversion, divert, dogleg, double, double a point,
     downright, drift, drifting, dyed-in-the-wool, egregious, errantry,
     excursion, excursus, exhaustive, exorbitation, fetch about, filmy,
     flimsy, gauzy, go about, gossamer, gossamery, gross, gybe, hairpin,
     headlong, heave round, heel, indirection, infernal, intensive,
     irretrievably, irrevocably, jibe, jibe all standing,
     light-pervious, limpid, lucid, lurch, mere, miss stays, naked,
     neat, nonopaque, oblique, obliquity, omnibus, omnipresent,
     orthodiagonal, orthogonal, out-and-out, outright, peekaboo,
     pellucid, pererration, perfect, perfectly, perpendicular,
     perpendicularly, pervasive, pivot, plain, plumb, plunging, ply,
     precipitate, precipitous, pure, purified, put about, put back,
     quite, radical, rambling, rank, rapid, rectified, regular,
     revealing, right, right-angle, right-angled, right-angular,
     round a point, see-through, sharp, sheerly, shift, shifting,
     shifting course, shifting path, sideling, simple, skew, slant,
     slew, slue, square, stark, steep, stickle, straight, straight-up,
     straight-up-and-down, straying, sway, sweep, sweeping, swerve,
     swerving, swing round, swing the stern, swinging, tack, thin,
     thorough, thoroughgoing, through-and-through, throw about, total,
     translucent, transparent, transpicuous, trend, turn, turn aside,
     turn back, turning, twist, ubiquitous, unadorned, unadulterated,
     unalloyed, unblended, unclouded, uncombined, uncompounded,
     unconditional, uncorrupted, undiluted, unenhanced, unfortified,
     universal, unleavened, unmingled, unmitigated, unmixed,
     unqualified, unrelievedly, unreserved, unrestricted,
     unsophisticated, untinged, up and down, up-and-down, utter,
     variation, vary, veer, veritable, vertical, volte-face, wandering,
     warp, wear, wear ship, wheel, whip, whirl, wholesale, wind, yaw,
     zigzag