SHEER • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Sheer

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/ʃɪr/ Listen

adjective

Sheer adj.

1.

Bright; clear; pure; unmixed. "Sheer ale." "Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain."

2.

Very thin or transparent; applied to fabrics; as, sheer muslin.

3.

Being only what it seems to be; obvious; simple; mere; downright; as, sheer folly; sheer nonsense. "A sheer impossibility." "It is not a sheer advantage to have several strings to one's bow."

4.

Stright up and down; vertical; prpendicular. "A sheer precipice of a thousand feet." "It was at least Nine roods of sheer ascent."

verb

Sheer v. t. To shear. (Obs.)

Sheer v. i. (past & past part. sheered; pres. part. sheering) 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.

To sheer off, to turn or move aside to a distance; to move away.

To sheer up, to approach obliquely.

noun

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.

2.

A turn or change in a course. "Give the canoe a sheer and get nearer to the shore."

3.

pl. Shears See Shear.

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.

To break sheer (Naut.), to deviate from sheer, and risk fouling the anchor.

adverb

Sheer adv. Clean; quite; at once. (Obs.)

See images of 'Sheer'

Etymology of 'Sheer'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Sheer" Quotes from Famous Books

... frog and in other animals. What the animal begins to do it persists in unless the act is positively harmful or conflicts with some beneficial activity. The only explanation of certain features of behavior is to be found in the conditions of their original occurrence. They persist by sheer force of conservatism. They have value only in the light of the circumstances under which they first appeared. Although this is merely a fact of habit formation, it suggests that many of the problems which have puzzled students of behavior ...

— The Dancing Mouse - A Study in Animal Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... age after age passes and teems only with the commonplace, that those who are the poets and teachers falter and lose faith: they utter no more of man the divine things the poets said of old. Perhaps the sheer respectability of the people they address deters them from making statements which in some respects might be considered libelous. But from whatever cause, from lack of heart or lack of faith, they have no real ...

— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... Rhode Island in the making of the Federal Union of the United States of America. The other colonies, once brought together into a single system, with power to adopt arrangements in their own interests in regard to customs duties and transportation rates, sheer economic pressure would have compelled the adhesion of Natal. In the constitution now put in force in South Africa the central point of importance is that it established what is practically a unitary and not a federal government. The underlying reason for this ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor

... to solidify them into a mass; on the top of this other trees had been placed, and the former process repeated. But the Tyrians had met the new tactics with new methods. They had employed divers to attach hooks to the boughs where they projected into the sea, and by sheer force had dragged the trees out from the superincumbent mass, bringing down in this way large portions of the structure.[14398] But with Alexander's coming, and the retirement of the Tyrian fleet, all this was altered. ...

— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... handles. One of dem old skillets was so big dat Mammy could cook 30 biscuits in it at one time. I allus did love biscuits, and I would go out in de yard and trade Aunt Tama's gingerbread to de other chilluns for deir sheer of biscuits. Den dey would be skeered to eat de gingerbread 'cause I told 'em I'd tell on 'em. Aunt Tama thought dey was sick and told Marse Frank de chilluns warn't eatin' nothin'. He axed 'em what was de matter and dey told him dey had done ...

— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

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