Library / English Dictionary

SHEAR

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A large edge tool that cuts sheet metal by passing a blade through it

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("shear" is a kind of...):

edge tool (any cutting tool with a sharp cutting edge (as a chisel or knife or plane or gouge))

Derivation:

shear (cut or cut through with shears)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(physics) a deformation of an object in which parallel planes remain parallel but are shifted in a direction parallel to themselves

Example:

the shear changed the quadrilateral into a parallelogram

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural phenomena

Hypernyms ("shear" is a kind of...):

deformation (alteration in the shape or dimensions of an object as a result of the application of stress to it)

Domain category:

natural philosophy; physics (the science of matter and energy and their interactions)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Become deformed by forces tending to produce a shearing strain

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Hypernyms (to "shear" is one way to...):

change (undergo a change; become different in essence; losing one's or its original nature)

Domain category:

natural philosophy; physics (the science of matter and energy and their interactions)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s

Sense 2

Meaning:

Cut with shears

Example:

shear hedges

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "shear" is one way to...):

clip; crop; cut back; dress; lop; prune; snip; trim (cultivate, tend, and cut back the growth of)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

shearer (a workman who uses shears to cut leather or metal or textiles)

shearing (removing by cutting off or clipping)

shears (large scissors with strong blades)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Cut or cut through with shears

Example:

shear the wool off the lamb

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "shear" is one way to...):

cut (separate with or as if with an instrument)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

shear (a large edge tool that cuts sheet metal by passing a blade through it)

shearer (a workman who uses shears to cut leather or metal or textiles)

shearing (removing by cutting off or clipping)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Shear the wool from

Example:

shear sheep

Synonyms:

fleece; shear

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "shear" is one way to...):

shave; trim (cut closely)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

shearer (a skilled worker who shears the wool off of sheep or other animals)

shearing (removing by cutting off or clipping)

shears (large scissors with strong blades)

Credits

 Context examples: 

It does not flow at low shear stress and generally exhibits plastic flow behavior.

(Gel Dosage Form, NCI Thesaurus/CDISC)

Inner shear waves can not be directly observed as they are of such little energy so the researchers looked for a creative way to detect them.

(Earth's Core Confirmed to Be Solid After 80 Years of Study, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Mixing of solids into liquid or of immiscible liquids by shear and impact within high velocity streams.

(High Shear Wet Milling Mixing, NCI Thesaurus)

It is most likely that they arise from an instability in the sheared eastward and westward winds.

(Hubble Sees Neptune's Mysterious Shrinking Storm, NASA)

Shorn of its glamour and romance, Arctic travel became to them a reality too harsh for their manhood and womanhood.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie knife plunged into the heart.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

An assistant professor of physics at Syracuse University is studying these materials, searching for the defects in each that produce a crack-like fissure called a shear band.

(Materials, like metallic glass, can help us understand how cells break, NSF)

It was a wonderful sight to see at least a hundred creatures of such enormous size and hideous appearance all swooping like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokes above us; but soon we realized that it was not one on which we could afford to linger.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The use of a series of integrated steps whereby a dry powder is conditioned by wetting, or is melted, to form a plasticized mass that with the aid of high shear forces yields relatively dense particles.

(High Shear Granulation, NCI Thesaurus)