SHEER

Bright; clear; pure; unmixed. "Sheer ale." Shak. Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain. Shak.

Very thin or transparent; -- applied to fabrics; as, sheer muslin.

Being only what it seems to be; obvious; simple; mere; downright; as, sheer folly; sheer nonsense. "A sheer impossibility." De Quincey. It is not a sheer advantage to have several strings to one's bow. M. Arnold.

Stright up and down; vertical; prpendicular. A sheer precipice of a thousand feet. J. D. Hooker. It was at least Nine roods of sheer ascent. Wordsworth.

Clean; quite; at once. [Obs.] Milton.

To shear. [Obs.] Dryden.

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. To sheer off, to turn or move aside to a distance; to move away. -- To sheer up, to approach obliquely.

The longitudinal upward curvature of the deck, gunwale, and lines of a vessel, as when viewed from the side.

The position of a vessel riding at single anchor and swinging clear of it.

A turn or change in a course. Give the canoe a sheer and get nearer to the shore. Cooper.

Shears See Shear. Sheer batten (Shipbuilding), a long strip of wood to guide the carpenters in following the sheer plan. -- Sheer boom, a boom slanting across a stream to direct floating logs to one side. -- Sheer hulk. See Shear hulk, under Hulk. -- Sheer plan, or Sheer draught (Shipbuilding), a projection of the lines of a vessel on a vertical longitudinal plane passing through the middle line of the vessel. -- Sheer pole (Naut.), an iron rod lashed to the shrouds just above the dead-eyes and parallel to the ratlines. -- Sheer strake (Shipbuilding), the strake under the gunwale on the top side. Totten. -- To break sheer (Naut.), to deviate from sheer, and risk fouling the anchor.