Definition of "shear"

shear

/ʃɪə(ɹ)/

verb
third-person singular simple present shears, present participle shearing, simple past sheared or shore, past participle shorn or sheared
1. To cut, originally with a sword or other bladed weapon, now usually with shears, or as if using shears.
  Quotations
  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
  the golden tresses […] were shorn away
  1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 68”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley
2. To remove the fleece from a sheep etc. by clipping.
3. To cut the hair of (a person).
4. (physics) To deform because of forces pushing in opposite directions.
5. (aviation, meteorology, intransitive, of wind) To change in direction or speed.
  Quotations
  The total along-the-runway wind component sheared from an 8-knot headwind to about a 56-knot tailwind over a 44-second period.
  1985 March 21, 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.
  Quotations
  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
countable and uncountable, plural shears
1. A cutting tool similar to scissors, but often larger.
  Quotations
  short of their wool, and naked from the shear
  1697, Virgil, “The Third Book of the Georgics”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […]
2. (metalworking) A large machine use for cutting sheet metal.
3. The act of shearing, or something removed by shearing.
  Quotations
  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.
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.
adjective
1. Misspelling of sheer.

Definition of "shear"

shear

verb

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noun

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adjective