Sheer1. (a.) Utter; complete; steep; thin or transparent; -- applied to fabrics.
2. (v. i.) Very thin or transparent; -- applied to fabrics; as, sheer muslin.
3. (v. i.) Being only what it seems to be; obvious; simple; mere; downright; as, sheer folly; sheer nonsense.
4. (v. i.) Straight up and down; vertical; perpendicular.
5. (adv.) Clean; quite; at once.
6. (v. t.) To shear.
7. (v. i.) To decline or deviate from the line of the proper course; to turn aside; to swerve; as, a ship sheers from her course; a horse sheers at a bicycle.
8. (n.) The longitudinal upward curvature of the deck, gunwale, and lines of a vessel, as when viewed from the side.
9. (n.) The position of a vessel riding at single anchor and swinging clear of it.
10. (n.) A turn or change in a course.
11. (n.) Shears See Shear.
Thesaurus Entries
aberrancy, aberration, about ship, abrupt, absolute, absolutely, airy, all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-out, all-pervading, angle, angle off, aplomb, arduous, arrant, at right angles, avert, back and fill, bare, bear away, bear off, bear to starboard, beat, beat about, bend, bent, bias, blasted, blessed, bluff, bold, born, box off, branch off, branching off, break, breakneck, bring about, bring round, broad-based, cant, cant round, cast, cast about, change course, change the bearing, change the heading, chiffon, circuitousness, clarified, clean, clear, clear as crystal, come about, complete, comprehensive, confounded, congenital, consummate, corner, crook, crystal, crystal-clear, crystalline, curve, declination, deep-dyed, deflect, depart from, departure, detour, deviance, deviancy, deviate, deviation, deviousness, diaphane, diaphanous, digress, digression, dip, discursion, distilled, divagate, divagation, divaricate, divarication, diverge, divergence, diversion, divert, dogleg, double, double a point, downright, drift, drifting, dyed-in-the-wool, egregious, errantry, excursion, excursus, exhaustive, exorbitation, fetch about, filmy, flimsy, gauzy, go about, gossamer, gossamery, gross, gybe, hairpin, headlong, heave round, heel, indirection, infernal, intensive, irretrievably, irrevocably, jibe, jibe all standing, light-pervious, limpid, lucid, lurch, mere, miss stays, naked, neat, nonopaque, oblique, obliquity, omnibus, omnipresent, orthodiagonal, orthogonal, out-and-out, outright, peekaboo, pellucid, pererration, perfect, perfectly, perpendicular, perpendicularly, pervasive, pivot, plain, plumb, plunging, ply, precipitate, precipitous, pure, purified, put about, put back, quite, radical, rambling, rank, rapid, rectified, regular, revealing, right, right-angle, right-angled, right-angular, round a point, see-through, sharp, sheerly, shift, shifting, shifting course, shifting path, sideling, simple, skew, slant, slew, slue, square, stark, steep, stickle, straight, straight-up, straight-up-and-down, straying, sway, sweep, sweeping, swerve, swerving, swing round, swing the stern, swinging, tack, thin, thorough, thoroughgoing, through-and-through, throw about, total, translucent, transparent, transpicuous, trend, turn, turn aside, turn back, turning, twist, ubiquitous, unadorned, unadulterated, unalloyed, unblended, unclouded, uncombined, uncompounded, unconditional, uncorrupted, undiluted, unenhanced, unfortified, universal, unleavened, unmingled, unmitigated, unmixed, unqualified, unrelievedly, unreserved, unrestricted, unsophisticated, untinged, up and down, up-and-down, utter, variation, vary, veer, veritable, vertical, volte-face, wandering, warp