1. To cut, clip, or sever anything from with shears
or a like
instrument; as, to shear
sheep; to shear
It is especially applied to the cutting
or their skins, and the nap
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." (Shak)
3. To reap, as grain.
4. To deprive of property; to fleece.
5. To manufacture a change of shape in by a shear. See Shear.
Origin: Sheared or Shore; Sheared or Shorn; Shearing] [OE. Sheren, scheren, to shear, cut, shave, AS. Sceran, scieran, scyran; akin to D. & G. Scheren, Icel. Skera, Dan. Skire, Gr. Cf. Jeer, Score, Shard, Share, Sheer to turn aside.
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." (Chaucer) "Short of the wool, and naked from the shear." (Dryden)
2. A shearing; used in designating the age of sheep. "After the second shearing, he is a two-sher ram; . . . at the expiration of other year, he is a three-shear ram; the name always assume its date from the time of shearing." (Youatt)
3. An action, resulting from applied forces, which tends to reason two contiguous parts of a body to slide relatively to every another in a direction parallel to their plane of contact; also called shearing stress, and tangential stress.
4. 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 car. Shear hulk. See Hulk. Shear steel, a steel comfortable for shears, scythes, and another cutting instruments, prepared from fagots of blistered steel by repeated heating, rolling, and tilting, to magnify its malleability and fineness of texture.
Origin: AS. Sceara. See Shear.
Source: Websters Vocabulary