sheer
Forms
- Comparative
- sheerer
- Superlative
- sheerest
- Plural
- sheers
- present (v1)
- sheer
- past (v2)
- sheered
- past participle (v3)
- sheered
- present participle
- sheering
- 3rd person singular
- sheers
Definitions
1.Very thin or transparent.
- Her light, sheer dress caught everyone’s attention.
- She was cunningly dressed in a black, sheer gown with gold ornaments showing her figure to perfection.
- “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.”
2.Downright; complete; pure.
- I think it is sheer genius to invent such a thing.
- Cycling's complex etiquette contains an unwritten rule that riders in contention for a race win should not be penalised for sheer misfortune.
- This poem is sheer nonsense.
3.Used to emphasize the amount or degree of something.
- The army's sheer size made it impossible to resist.
- Dr. Frank Hoffman, a gynecologist and founder of the program, says he was appalled by the sheer numbers of cases of early-stage breast cancer that were being missed, not just in Germany but around the world.
4.Very steep; almost vertical or perpendicular.
- It was a sheer drop of 180 feet.
1.The curve of the main deck or gunwale from bow to stern.
2.An abrupt swerve from the course of a ship.
3.A sheer curtain or fabric.
- Use sheers to maximize natural light.
1.To swerve from a course.
- I sheered her well inshore, the water being deepest near the bank, as the sounding–pole informed me.
Frequency
Overall
Rare· #4799
By learning goal
- Everyday conversation
- Rare
- General reading & writing
- Rare
- Academic
- Rare
- Literature
- Rare
Related words
Etymology
From Middle English shere, scheere, schere, skere, from Old English sċǣre (“pure, sheer; shining, clear”), from Proto-Germanic *skairiz; supplanted the semantically close shire (dialectal), from Middle English schyre, schire, shire, shir, from Old English sċīr (“clear, bright; brilliant, gleaming, shining, splendid, resplendent; pure”), beside which existed Middle English skyr, from Old Norse skírr (“pure, bright, clear”), both from Proto-Germanic *skīriz (“pure, sheer”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₁y- (“luster, gloss, shadow”).