Sheer | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Sheer, a.

adjective

a. [A-S. scīr, scȳr, O. Sax. skīr, O. Fries. skīre, Icel. skīr, skirr, skīr, Sw. skīr, skär, Dan. skīær, skær, M. H. Ger. schīr, N. H. Ger. schier, Goth. skīrs.]

Separate from any thing foreign; unmingled; pure; clear. “A fountain sheer.” Spenser. “Sheer ale.” Shak.
Being only what it seems to be; simple; mere; unrelieved.

Here is a necessity, on the one side, that I should do that which, on the other side, it appears to be a sheer impossibility that I should even attempt. De Quincey.

Clear; thin; as, sheer muslin.
Perpendicular; straight up and down. “A sheer precipice of a thousand feet.” J. D. Hooker.

It was at least Nine roods of sheer ascent. Wordsworth. Sheer line of a trail flying-bridge, the stretched hawser along which the boat slides. — Sheer plan (Ship-building), a projection of the lines of a ship on a vertical longitudinal plane passing through the middle line of the vessel.

Sheer, adv.

adverb

[O. H. Ger. scioro, N. H. Ger. schier. See supra.] Clean; quite; at once. [Obs.] Milton.

Sheer, v. t.

verbtransitive

To shear. [Obs.]

Sheer, v. i.

verbintransitive

[imp. & p. p. SHEERED; p. pr. & vb. n. SHEERING.] [See SHEAR, the sense of which is, to separate.] To decline or deviate from the line of the proper course; to turn aside; as, a ship sheers from her course; a horse sheers at a stone.

To sheer off, to turn or move aside to a distance. — To sheer up, to turn and approach in nearly a parallel direction.

Sheer, n.

noun

Sense 1. (Naut.) (a.) The longitudinal curve or bend of a ship’s deck or sides. (b.) The position in which a ship is sometimes kept at single anchor, to keep her clear of it.

Sense 2. (pl.) Shears. See SHEAR.

To break sheer (Naut.), to deviate from a position, and risk fouling the anchor.