sheer

adj

1. Very thin or transparent.

   “Her light, sheer dress caught everyone’s attention.”

   ““She sheathed her legs in the sheerest of the nylons that her father had brought back from the Continent, and slipped her feet into the toeless, high-heeled shoes of black suède.””

   “She was cunningly dressed in a black, sheer gown with gold ornaments showing her figure to perfection.”

2. (obsolete)Pure in composition; unmixed; unadulterated.

   “If she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lying’st knave in Christendom.”

   “Thou sheer, immaculate and silver fountain, / From when this stream through muddy passages / Hath held his current and defiled himself!”

3. (broadly)Downright; complete; pure.

   “I think it is sheer genius to invent such a thing.”

   “This poem is sheer nonsense.”

   “That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however, by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired. And if the arts of humbleness failed him, he overcame you by sheer impudence.”

   “There is no organized movement of gays or feminists that would support individuals and that would make coming out, at the workplace, anything less than a shear ^([sic]) act of suicide.”

   “Cycling's complex etiquette contains an unwritten rule that riders in contention for a race win should not be penalised for sheer misfortune.”

4. Used to emphasize the amount or degree of something.

   “The army's sheer size made it impossible to resist.”

   “Perhaps as startling as the sheer toll was the devastation to some of the state’s well-known locales. Boardwalks along the beach in Seaside Heights, Belmar and other towns on the Jersey Shore were blown away. Amusement parks, arcades and restaurants all but vanished. Bridges to barrier islands buckled, preventing residents from even inspecting the damage to their property.”

   “Dr. Frank Hoffman, a gynecologist and founder of the program, says he was appalled by the sheer numbers of cases of early-stage breast cancer that were being missed, not just in Germany but around the world.”

5. Very steep; almost vertical or perpendicular.

   “It was a sheer drop of 180 feet.”

adv

1. (archaic)Clean; completely; at once.

   “Hector the ashen lance of Ajax smote / With his broad faulchion, at the nether end, / And lopp’d it sheer.”

   “Swift into the dark stream at once he fell, / As the red star at once falls swift and sheer / From sky to sea”

   “Descending , and in half cut sheer”

noun

1. A sheer curtain or fabric.

   “Use sheers to maximize natural light.”

   “Lightweight, tightly woven silkies, sheers, lingerie”

2. The curve of the main deck or gunwale from bow to stern.
3. An abrupt swerve from the course of a ship.

verb

1. To swerve from a course.

   “I sheered her well inshore—the water being deepest near the bank, as the sounding–pole informed me.”

   “Seydlitz correctly identifies the larger shell splashes as coming from the two "large light cruisers" at the rear, and takes aim. Moments later, Courageous sheers out of line, smoke and steam venting through a massive hole in her side, the shells having blasted right through whatever excuse for armor was present and detonated amidst the boiler rooms. She is doomed.”

2. (alt-of, obsolete)Obsolete spelling of shear.

   “So thick, our navy scarce could sheer their way”

name

1. A surname.