Hello, you have come here looking for the meaning of the word sheer. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word sheer, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say sheer in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word sheer you have here. The definition of the word sheer will help you to be more precise and correct when speaking or writing your texts. Knowing the definition ofsheer, as well as those of other words, enriches your vocabulary and provides you with more and better linguistic resources.
Her light, sheer dress caught everyone’s attention.
1954, Alexander Alderson, chapter 17, in The Subtle Minotaur:
“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.”
1966, James Workman, The Mad Emperor, Melbourne, Sydney: Scripts, page 53:
She was cunningly dressed in a black, sheer gown with gold ornaments showing her figure to perfection.
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.
1981 December 19, Nancy Wechsler, Christine Delphy, “Politics In France”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 22, page 9:
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 act of suicide.
2012 July 15, Richard Williams, Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track, Guardian Unlimited:
Cycling's complex etiquette contains an unwritten rule that riders in contention for a race win should not be penalised for sheer misfortune.
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.
1791, William Cowper, The Iliad of Homer, translation of original by Homer, Book XVI:
Hector the ashen lance of Ajax smote / With his broad faulchion, at the nether end, / And lopp’d it sheer.
1888, Francis Hastings Doyle, “Hylas”, in The Return of the Guards: And Other Poems, translation of original by Theocritus:
Swift into the dark stream at once he fell, / As the red star at once falls swift and sheer / From sky to sea
1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost., London: ">…] , and are to be sold by Peter Parker; nd by Robert Boulter; nd Matthias Walker,, →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books:, London: Basil Montagu Pickering, 1873, →OCLC:
I sheered her well inshore—the water being deepest near the bank, as the sounding–pole informed me.
2018 October 17, Drachinifel, 15:10 from the start, in Last Ride of the High Seas Fleet - Battle of Texel 1918, archived from the original on 4 August 2022:
Seydlitz correctly identifies the larger shell splashes as coming from the two "large light cruisers" at the rear, and takes aim. Moments later, Courageoussheers 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.
^ “Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), August 6 2009 (last accessed), archived from the original on 11 November 2011