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Sheer   /ʃɪr/   Listen
Sheer

adjective
1.
Complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers.  Synonyms: absolute, downright, out-and-out, rank, right-down.  "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"
2.
Not mixed with extraneous elements.  Synonyms: plain, unmingled, unmixed.  "Sheer wine" , "Not an unmixed blessing"
3.
Very steep; having a prominent and almost vertical front.  Synonyms: bluff, bold.  "Where the bold chalk cliffs of England rise" , "A sheer descent of rock"
4.
So thin as to transmit light.  Synonyms: cobwebby, diaphanous, filmy, gauze-like, gauzy, gossamer, see-through, transparent, vaporous, vapourous.  "Filmy wings of a moth" , "Gauzy clouds of dandelion down" , "Gossamer cobwebs" , "Sheer silk stockings" , "Transparent chiffon" , "Vaporous silks"
verb
(past & past part. sheered; pres. part. sheering)
1.
Turn sharply; change direction abruptly.  Synonyms: curve, cut, slew, slue, swerve, trend, veer.  "The motorbike veered to the right"
2.
Cause to sheer.
adverb
1.
Straight up or down without a break.  Synonym: perpendicularly.
2.
Directly.





WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University


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"Sheer" Quotes from Famous Books



... is that sheer chance has made us privy to an important secret. Now then, if the crew of this underwater boat have a personal interest in keeping that secret, and if their personal interest is more important than the lives of three men, I believe that our very ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... clear, I could detect a refinement of the soul, and true womanly honor in Mrs. Larkum that the other lacked. I was glad to notice that Mrs. Larkum's tears had ceased to flow so profusely. There was an occasional moistening of the eye from sheer joy; for she too had got her experience brightened of late. She was finding it easier to trust in the Lord, and be glad in Him now that she had got a stronger arm than her own to lighten her burdens. ...
— Medoline Selwyn's Work • Mrs. J. J. Colter
... thinking of going on such a day as this? It would be a sheer impossibility. Why, the carriage would be blown over, and if it wasn't, no horses would ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... hands, and by sheer force of will seemed to pull herself together. These nervous women have often an ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... happened to the manufacturer, as he was sitting alone on the doorstep one afternoon and sleepily contemplating the world, to see a strange young man come down the hill who asked the way to the town hall. Huerlin was civil out of sheer boredom, went a couple of streets with the stranger, answered his questions, and was presented for his trouble with two cigars. He asked the next wagon-driver for a light, lit one of them, and returned to his shady place ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various


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