sheer
/ʃɪə̯/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.01 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Very thin or transparent.
adj
Very steep; almost vertical or perpendicular.
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "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!"
- "I think it is sheer genius to invent such a thing."
Etymology
From Middle English shere, scheere, schere, skere, from Old English sċǣre (“pure, sheer; shining, clear”), from Proto-Germanic *skairiz; supplanted the semantically close shire (dialectal), from Middle English schyre, schire, shire, shir, from Old English sċīr (“clear, bright; brilliant, gleaming, shining, splendid, resplendent; pure”), beside which existed Middle English skyr, from Old Norse skírr (“pure, bright, clear”), both from Proto-Germanic *skīriz (“pure, sheer”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₁y- (“luster, gloss, shadow”). Cognate with Danish skær, German schier (“sheer”), German Low German schier (“sheer, pure, unadulterated”; “completely, almost”), Dutch schier (“almost”), Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌴𐌹𐍂𐍃 (skeirs, “clear, lucid”). Outside Germanic, cognate to Albanian hir (“grace, beauty; goodwill”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ʃɪə̯/
- British English: /ʃɪə̯/
Usage
Inflected Forms
sheerer (comparative)
more sheer (comparative)
sheerest (superlative)
most sheer (superlative)
sheers (plural)
sheers (present, singular)
sheering (participle, present)
sheered (participle, past)
sheered (past)