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of the material to be cut, -- used for cutting cloth and other substances. Fate urged the shears, and cut the sylph in twain. Pope.

To cut off; as with shears or scissors; as, to clip the hair; to clip coin. Sentenced to have his ears clipped. Macaulay.

rse kind of paper used in pressing and finishing woolen cloth. -- Cloth shearer, one who shears cloth and frees it from superfluous nap.

An instrument (chisel or shears) to cut the ribs and open the thoracic cavity, in post-mortem examinations and dissections. Knight.

A pair of shears. Pope.

One of the Parcæ, or Fates, esp. Atropos. [R.] Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin- spun life. Milton.

doing something; skill; facility; dexterity. The fellow . . . has not the knack with his shears. B. Jonson. The dean was famous in his time, And had a kind of knack at rhyme. Swift.

A kind of shears used in cropping woolen cloth. Lewis hole, a hole wider at the bottom than at the mouth, into which a lewis is fitted. De Foe.

runing hook, or Pruning knife, cutting instrument used in pruning trees, etc. -- Pruning shears, shears for pruning trees, vines, etc.

by rotating devices which take the place of reciprocating buckets or pistons. -- Rotary shears, shears, as for cloth, metal, etc., in which revolving sharp-edged or sharp-cornered wheels do the cutting. -- Rotary valve, a valve acting by continuous or partial rotation, as in the four-way cock.

To cut with scissors or shears; to prepare with the aid of scissors. Massinger.

A cutting instrument resembling shears, but smaller, consisting of two cutting blades with handles, movable on a pin in the center, by which they are held together. Often called a pair of scissors. [Formerly written also cisors, cizars, and scissars.] Scissors grinder (Zoöl.), the European goatsucker. [Prov. Eng.]…

dle, called a snath, which is bent into a form convenient for use. The sharp-edged scythe shears up the spiring grass. Dryden. The scythe of Time mows down. Milton.

To cut, clip, or sever anything from with shears or a like instrument; as, to shear sheep; to shear cloth.

One who shears. Like a lamb dumb before his shearer. Acts viii. 32.

The act or operation of clipping with shears or a shearing machine, as the wool from sheep, or the nap from cloth.

esicles or pocks upon the skin. -- Sheep scabious. (Bot.) Same as Sheep's bit. -- Sheep shears, shears in which the blades form the two ends of a steel bow, by the elasticity of which they open as often as pressed together by the hand in cutting; -- so called because used to cut off the wool of sheep. -- Sheep sorre…

One who shears, or cuts off the wool from, sheep.

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 l…

s furnished with ribs entering between similar ribs in the other roller, and cutting like shears, -- used in slitting metals.