Dictionary Definition
sheer adj
1 complete and without restriction or
qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers; "absolute
freedom"; "an absolute dimwit"; "a downright lie"; "out-and-out
mayhem"; "an out-and-out lie"; "a rank outsider"; "many right-down
vices"; "got the job through sheer persistence"; "sheer stupidity"
[syn: absolute,
downright, out-and-out(a),
rank(a),
right-down,
sheer(a)]
2 not mixed with extraneous elements; "plain
water"; "sheer wine"; "not an unmixed blessing" [syn: plain, unmingled, unmixed]
3 very steep; having a prominent and almost
vertical front; "a bluff headland"; "where the bold chalk cliffs of
England rise"; "a sheer descent of rock" [syn: bluff, bold]
4 so thin as to transmit light; "a hat with a
diaphanous veil"; "filmy wings of a moth"; "gauzy clouds of
dandelion down"; "gossamer cobwebs"; "sheer silk stockings";
"transparent chiffon"; "vaporous silks" [syn: diaphanous, filmy, gauzy, gossamer, see-through,
transparent,
vaporous, cobwebby] adv
1 straight up or down without a break [syn:
perpendicularly]
2 directly; "he fell sheer into the water"
Verb
1 turn sharply; change direction abruptly; "The
car cut to the left at the intersection"; "The motorbike veered to
the right" [syn: swerve,
curve, trend, veer, slue, slew, cut]
2 cause to sheer; "She sheered her car around the
obstacle"
User Contributed Dictionary
English
Homophones
Adjective
- In the context of "textiles": Very thin or transparent.
- Her light, sheer dress caught everyone's attention.
- Pure; unmixed; being only what it
seems to be.
- I think it is sheer genius to invent such a thing.
- This poem is sheer nonsense.
- I think it is sheer genius to invent such a thing.
- Straight up and down;
vertical; perpendicular.
- It was a sheer drop of 180 feet.
Synonyms
- italbrac very thin or transparent: diaphanous, see-through, thin
- italbrac straight up and down: perpendicular, steep, vertical
Translations
very thin or transparent
- Finnish: ohut, harsomainen
- German: hauchdünn
- Polish: przezroczysty
pure; unmixed
straight up and down; vertical; perpendicular
- Finnish: jyrkkä, pystysuora
- German: steil
- Polish: urwisty
Noun
References
Extensive Definition
Sheer may refer to:
- Sheer Music, a record label
- Sheer curation, a lightweight approach to digital curation
- Sheer (textile), for sheer textiles and fabrics
- "Sheer", when applied to ship design, an upward curve in the deck toward either end
sheer in German: Sheer
Synonyms, Antonyms and Related Words
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, wear, wear ship, wheel, whip, whirl, wholesale, wind, yaw, zigzag