sheer.
Very thin or transparent.
Meaning & usage
Very thin or transparent.
Her light, sheer dress caught everyone’s attention.
Pure in composition; unmixed; unadulterated.
Downright; complete; pure.
I think it is sheer genius to invent such a thing.
This poem is sheer nonsense.
Used to emphasize the amount or degree of something.
The army's sheer size made it impossible to resist.
Very steep; almost vertical or perpendicular.
It was a sheer drop of 180 feet.
Where this word comes from
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”).
Clean; completely; at once.
Where this word comes from
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”).
A sheer curtain or fabric.
Use sheers to maximize natural light.
Where this word comes from
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”).
The curve of the main deck or gunwale from bow to stern.
An abrupt swerve from the course of a ship.
Where this word comes from
Perhaps from Dutch scheren (“to move aside, skim”); see also shear.
To swerve from a course.
Obsolete spelling of shear.
Where this word comes from
Perhaps from Dutch scheren (“to move aside, skim”); see also shear.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.