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Shear   /ʃɪr/   Listen
verb
Shear  v. t.  (past sheared or shore;past part. sheared or shorn; pres. part. shearing)  
1.
To cut, clip, or sever anything from with shears or a like instrument; as, to shear sheep; to shear cloth. Note: It is especially applied to the cutting of wool from sheep or their skins, and the nap from cloth.
2.
To separate or sever with shears or a similar instrument; to cut off; to clip (something) from a surface; as, to shear a fleece. "Before the golden tresses... were shorn away."
3.
To reap, as grain. (Scot.)
4.
Fig.: To deprive of property; to fleece.
5.
(Mech.) To produce a change of shape in by a shear. See Shear, n., 4.


Shear  v. i.  
1.
To deviate. See Sheer.
2.
(Engin.) To become more or less completely divided, as a body under the action of forces, by the sliding of two contiguous parts relatively to each other in a direction parallel to their plane of contact.


noun
Shear  n.  
1.
A pair of shears; now always used in the plural, but formerly also in the singular. See Shears. "On his head came razor none, nor shear." "Short of the wool, and naked from the shear."
2.
A shearing; used in designating the age of sheep. "After the second shearing, he is a two-shear ram;... at the expiration of another year, he is a three-shear ram; the name always taking its date from the time of shearing."
3.
(Engin.) An action, resulting from applied forces, which tends to cause two contiguous parts of a body to slide relatively to each other in a direction parallel to their plane of contact; also called shearing stress, and tangential stress.
4.
(Mech.) A strain, or change of shape, of an elastic body, consisting of an extension in one direction, an equal compression in a perpendicular direction, with an unchanged magnitude in the third direction.
Shear blade, one of the blades of shears or a shearing machine.
Shear hulk. See under Hulk.
Shear steel, a steel suitable for shears, scythes, and other cutting instruments, prepared from fagots of blistered steel by repeated heating, rolling, and tilting, to increase its malleability and fineness of texture.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Shear" Quotes from Famous Books



... inevitable weapons from mine own hand will I revenge me on another,[52] whoever to her be the dearest of mortals. But to thee, O unhappy one, in recompense for these evils, will I give the greatest honors in the land of Troezene; for the unwedded virgins before their nuptials shall shear their locks to thee for many an age, owning the greatest sorrow tears can give; but ever among the virgins shall there be a remembrance of thee that shall awake the song, nor dying away without a name shall Phaedra's love toward thee pass ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... the points will break lightly, and men may easily polish them. But some workmen, for malice, will not polish them; to that intent, to make men believe that they may not be polished. But men may assay them in this manner. First shear with them or write with them in sapphires, in crystal or in other precious stones. After that, men take the adamant, that is the shipman's stone, that draweth the needle to him, and men lay the diamond upon the adamant, ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown
... learned that it is his business and duty to cultivate the earth, and not exhaust it; to get two blades of grass this year where but one blade grew before; to gather thirty bushels of corn from the acre which produced but twenty bushels last year; to shear three pounds of wool off the sheep which five years ago gave but two pounds, and so on. He thinks to see how near the agricultural wind he can move and his sails not shake, or with how little labor he can carry his farm through the year ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... drear. Well-ground my polished sword is and thin and keen of edge And trenchant, eke, for smiting and long my steel-barbed spear. So fell and fierce my stroke is, if on a mountain high It lit, though all of granite, right through its midst 'twould shear. Nor troops have I nor henchmen nor one to lend me aid Save God, to whom, my Maker, my voice in praise I rear. 'Tis He who pardoneth errors alike to slave and free; On Him is my reliance in ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... have amply filled the capabilities of Government for several generations now. Hard tasks both, it would appear. In accomplishing the first, for example, have not heaven-born Chancellors of the Exchequer had to shear us very bare; and to leave an overplus of Debt, or of fleeces shorn before they are grown, justly esteemed among the wonders of the world? Not a first-rate keeping of the peace, this, we begin to surmise! At least it seems ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle


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