From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Sheer \Sheer\, adjective [OE. shere, skere, pure, bright, Icel. sk?rr; akin to sk[=i]rr, AS. sc[=i]r, OS. sk[=i]ri, MHG. sch[=i]r, G. schier, Dan. sk?r, Sw. sk["a]r, Goth. skeirs clear, and E. shine. [root]157. See {Shine}, verb (used without an object)]
1. Bright; clear; pure; unmixed. ''Sheer ale.'' --Shak.
Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain. --Shak.
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.'' --De Quincey.
It is not a sheer advantage to have several strings to one's bow. --M. Arnold.
4. Stright up and down; vertical; prpendicular.
A sheer precipice of a thousand feet. --J. D. Hooker.
It was at least Nine roods of sheer ascent. --Wordsworth.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Sheer \Sheer\, adverb Clean; quite; at once. [Obs.] --Milton.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Sheer \Sheer\, verb (used with an object) [See {Shear}.] To shear. [Obs.] --Dryden.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Sheer \Sheer\, verb (used without an object) [imp. & p. p. {Sheered}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Sheering}.] [D. sheren to shear, cut, withdraw, warp. See {Shear}.] 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.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
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. --Cooper.
{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. --Totten.
{To break sheer} (Naut.), to deviate from sheer, and risk fouling the anchor.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers; "absolute freedom"; "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" [syn: {absolute}, {downright}, {out-and-out(a)}, {rank(a)}, {right-down}, {sheer(a)}]
2: not mixed with extraneous elements; "plain water"; "sheer wine"; "not an unmixed blessing" [syn: {plain}, {unmingled}, {unmixed}]
3: very steep; having a prominent and almost vertical front; "a bluff headland"; "where the bold chalk cliffs of England rise"; "a sheer descent of rock" [syn: {bluff}, {bold}]
4: so thin as to transmit light; "a hat with a diaphanous veil"; "filmy wings of a moth"; "gauzy clouds of dandelion down"; "gossamer cobwebs"; "sheer silk stockings"; "transparent chiffon"; "vaporous silks" [syn: {diaphanous}, {filmy}, {gauzy}, {gossamer}, {see-through}, {transparent}, {vaporous}, {cobwebby}]
adverb
1: straight up or down without a break [syn: {perpendicularly}]
2: directly; "he fell sheer into the water"
verb
1: turn sharply; change direction abruptly; "The car cut to the left at the intersection"; "The motorbike veered to the right" [syn: {swerve}, {curve}, {trend}, {veer}, {slue}, {slew}, {cut}]
2: cause to sheer; "She sheered her car around the obstacle"
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
263 Moby Thesaurus words for "sheer": aberrancy, aberration, about ship, abrupt, absolute, absolutely, airy, all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-out, all-pervading, angle, angle off, aplomb, arduous, arrant, at right angles, avert, back and fill, bare, bear away, bear off, bear to starboard, beat, beat about, bend, bent, bias, blasted, blessed, bluff, bold, born, box off, branch off, branching off, break, breakneck, bring about, bring round, broad-based, cant, cant round, cast, cast about, change course, change the bearing, change the heading, chiffon, circuitousness, clarified, clean, clear, clear as crystal, come about, complete, comprehensive, confounded, congenital, consummate, corner, crook, crystal, crystal-clear, crystalline, curve, declination, deep-dyed, deflect, depart from, departure, detour, deviance, deviancy, deviate, deviation, deviousness, diaphane, diaphanous, digress, digression, dip, discursion, distilled, divagate, divagation, divaricate, divarication, diverge, divergence, diversion, divert, dogleg, double, double a point, downright, drift, drifting, dyed-in-the-wool, egregious, errantry, excursion, excursus, exhaustive, exorbitation, fetch about, filmy, flimsy, gauzy, go about, gossamer, gossamery, gross, gybe, hairpin, headlong, heave round, heel, indirection, infernal, intensive, irretrievably, irrevocably, jibe, jibe all standing, light-pervious, limpid, lucid, lurch, mere, miss stays, naked, neat, nonopaque, oblique, obliquity, omnibus, omnipresent, orthodiagonal, orthogonal, out-and-out, outright, peekaboo, pellucid, pererration, perfect, perfectly, perpendicular, perpendicularly, pervasive, pivot, plain, plumb, plunging, ply, precipitate, precipitous, pure, purified, put about, put back, quite, radical, rambling, rank, rapid, rectified, regular, revealing, right, right-angle, right-angled, right-angular, round a point, see-through, sharp, sheerly, shift, shifting, shifting course, shifting path, sideling, simple, skew, slant, slew, slue, square, stark, steep, stickle, straight, straight-up, straight-up-and-down, straying, sway, sweep, sweeping, swerve, swerving, swing round, swing the stern, swinging, tack, thin, thorough, thoroughgoing, through-and-through, throw about, total, translucent, transparent, transpicuous, trend, turn, turn aside, turn back, turning, twist, ubiquitous, unadorned, unadulterated, unalloyed, unblended, unclouded, uncombined, uncompounded, unconditional, uncorrupted, undiluted, unenhanced, unfortified, universal, unleavened, unmingled, unmitigated, unmixed, unqualified, unrelievedly, unreserved, unrestricted, unsophisticated, untinged, up and down, up-and-down, utter, variation, vary, veer, veritable, vertical, volte-face, wandering, warp, wear, wear ship, wheel, whip, whirl, wholesale, wind, yaw, zigzag
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