sheer: Meaning and Definition of

sheer

1. transparently thin; diaphanous, as some fabrics: sheer stockings.
2. unmixed with anything else: We drilled a hundred feet through sheer rock.
3. unqualified; utter: sheer nonsense.
4. extending down or up very steeply; almost completely vertical: a sheer descent of rock.
5. bright; shining.

1. clear; completely; quite: ran sheer into the thick of battle.
2. perpendicularly; vertically; down or up very steeply.

1. a thin, diaphanous material, as chiffon or voile.

sheer

1. to deviate from a course, as a ship; swerve.

1. to cause to sheer.
2. to give sheer to (a hull).

1. a deviation or divergence, as of a ship from its course; swerve.
2. the fore-and-aft upward curve of the hull of a vessel at the main deck or bulwarks.
3. the position in which a ship at anchor is placed to keep it clear of the anchor.