shear

Etymology

From Middle English sheren, scheren, from Old English sċieran (“to shear; to shave”), from Proto-West Germanic *skeran, from Proto-Germanic *skeraną, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Cognate with West Frisian skarre, Low German scheren, Dutch scheren, German scheren, Danish skære, Norwegian Bokmål skjære, Norwegian Nynorsk skjera, Swedish skära; and (from Indo-European) with Ancient Greek κείρω (keírō, “I cut off”), Latin caro (“flesh”), Albanian shqerr (“to tear, cut”), harr (“to cut, to mow”), Lithuanian skìrti (“separate”), Welsh ysgar (“separate”). See also sharp.

verb

1. To cut, originally with a sword or other bladed weapon, now usually with shears, or as if using shears.
   So trenchant was the Templar’s weapon, that it shore asunder, as it had been a willow twig, the tough and plaited handle of the mace, which the ill-fated Saxon reared to parry the blow, and, descending on his head, levelled him with the earth. 1819, Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
2. To remove the fleece from a sheep etc. by clipping.
   shear the llamas
3. To cut the hair of (a person).
   shear the afro off someone's head
4. (physics) To deform because of forces pushing in opposite directions.
5. (aviation, meteorology, intransitive, of wind) To change in direction or speed.
   The total along-the-runway wind component sheared from an 8-knot headwind to about a 56-knot tailwind over a 44-second period. 21 March 1985, National Transportation Safety Board, “2.3 Airplane Takeoff Performance”, in Aircraft Accident Report: United Airlines Flight 663, Boeing 727-222, N7647U, Denver, Colorado, May 31, 1984, page 41
6. (mathematics) To transform by displacing every point in a direction parallel to some given line by a distance proportional to the point’s distance from the line.
7. (mining, intransitive) To make a vertical cut in coal.
8. (Scotland) To reap, as grain.
   Soon as the bending Scythe, And Sickle keen, have shear'd the golden Grain, Array'd in all the Equipage of Death, Forth the stern Sportsman stalks 1769, John Aldington, A Poem on the Cruelty of Shooting etc.
9. (figurative) To deprive of property; to fleece.

noun

1. A cutting tool similar to scissors, but often larger.
   short of their wool, and naked from the shear
2. (metalworking) A large machine use for cutting sheet metal.
3. The act of shearing, or something removed by shearing.
   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. 1837, William Youatt, Sheep: Their Breeds, Management, and Diseases
4. (physics) Forces that push in opposite directions.
5. (aviation, meteorology) Wind shear, or an instance thereof.
   We hit a nasty shear on approach and had to go around.
6. (mathematics) A transformation that displaces every point in a direction parallel to some given line by a distance proportional to the point’s distance from the line.
7. (geology) The response of a rock to deformation usually by compressive stress, resulting in particular textures.

adj

1. Misspelling of sheer.