sheer
Meanings
- Very thin or transparent.
- Pure in composition; unmixed; unadulterated.
- Downright; complete; pure.
- Used to emphasize the amount or degree of something.
- Very steep; almost vertical or perpendicular.
- Clean; completely; at once.
- A sheer curtain or fabric.
- The curve of the main deck or gunwale from bow to stern.
- An abrupt swerve from the course of a ship.
- To swerve from a course.
- Obsolete spelling of shear.
- A surname.
Pronunciation
Word forms
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”). Cognate with Danish skær, German schier (“sheer”), German Low German schier (“sheer, pure, unadulterated”; “completely, almost”), Dutch schier (“almost”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌴𐌹𐍂𐍃 (skeirs, “clear, lucid”). Outside Germanic, cognate to Albanian hir (“grace, beauty; goodwill”).