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Sheer   /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.)





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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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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