Definition

1. Verb:

   • To cut or remove something, especially wool, hair, or grass, by using a large cutting tool like scissors or clippers: This is the most common meaning, often used in agriculture and grooming.
   • To become deformed or break due to the application of opposing parallel forces: This is a technical meaning used in physics and engineering, describing a specific type of stress or strain.
   • To cut through something with a sharp, forceful action: This meaning describes a clean, powerful cut.

2. Noun:

   • A large cutting tool, similar to large scissors, used for cutting metal, trimming hedges, or shearing sheep: This refers to the physical instrument.
   • (Physics/Engineering) A deformation or strain in which parallel layers of a material slide past each other: This refers to the type of force or the resulting change in shape.

Usage Examples

• Verb:

  • The farmer will shear the sheep in the spring. (The farmer will cut the wool from the sheep.)
  • Under immense pressure, the metal bolt sheared. (The bolt broke due to parallel forces.)
  • The laser sheared through the thick steel plate. (The laser cut cleanly through the plate.)

• Noun:

  • He used a pair of shears to trim the overgrown hedge. (He used a large cutting tool for the hedge.)
  • The bridge collapsed due to a failure caused by shear stress. (The collapse was due to sliding parallel forces.)

Advanced Usage

• "To be shorn of (something)": To be stripped or deprived of something, often abstract like power, dignity, or possessions.

  • After the scandal, the politician was shorn of all his authority. (The politician was completely deprived of his authority.)

• Technical Usage in Physics: "Shear modulus" or "shear strength" are terms describing a material's resistance to shearing deformation.

  • The shear strength of the adhesive was tested in the lab. (The lab tested how well the glue resisted sliding forces.)

Variants and Related Words

• Shears (n, plural): A cutting instrument resembling large scissors (e.g., , ).
• Shearer (n): A person or machine that shears, especially sheep.
• Shearing (n/gerund): The act or process of cutting wool from sheep or using shears.
• Sheared (adj): Describes something that has been cut or shaped by shearing (e.g., ).
• Shorn (adj, past participle): Often used to describe something that has been cut off or removed (e.g., , ).

Synonyms

• Verb (cut): Clip, trim, cut off, shave.
• Verb (break): Snap, cleave, rupture.
• Noun (tool): Clippers, snips, scissors.

Related Phrasal Verbs

(Note: "Shear" is not commonly used in phrasal verb constructions. Its meanings are typically expressed directly.)

Related Idioms

• "To come home shorn": To return having lost everything, especially money or possessions.
  • He invested all his savings in the failed venture and came home shorn. (He returned having lost all his money.)

Noun

1. a large edge tool that cuts sheet metal by passing a blade through it
2. (physics) a deformation of an object in which parallel planes remain parallel but are shifted in a direction parallel to themselves
   • the shear changed the quadrilateral into a parallelogram

Verb

1. become deformed by forces tending to produce a shearing strain
2. cut or cut through with shears
   • shear the wool off the lamb
3. shear the wool from
   • shear sheep
4. cut with shears
   • shear hedges