meaning of shear
1.  To cut, clip, or sever anything from with shears or a like instrument; as, to shear sheep; to shear cloth. 
2.  To separate or sever with shears or a similar instrument; to cut off; to clip (something) from a surface; as, to shear a fleece. 
3.  To reap, as grain. 
4.  Fig. : To deprive of property; to fleece. 
5.  To produce a change of shape in by a shear.  See Shear, n. , 4. 
6.  A pair of shears; -- now always used in the plural, but formerly also in the singular.  See Shears. 
7.  A shearing; -- used in designating the age of sheep. 
8.  An action, resulting from applied forces, which tends to cause two contiguous parts of a body to slide relatively to each other in a direction parallel to their plane of contact; -- also called shearing stress, and tangential stress. 
9.  A strain, or change of shape, of an elastic body, consisting of an extension in one direction, an equal compression in a perpendicular direction, with an unchanged magnitude in the third direction. 
10.  To deviate.  See Sheer. 
11.  To become more or less completely divided, as a body under the action of forces, by the sliding of two contiguous parts relatively to each other in a direction parallel to their plane of contact. 
12.  a large edge tool that cuts sheet metal by passing a blade through it
						 
Related Words
shear | shearbill | sheard | sheared | shearer | shearing | shearling | shearman | shearmen | shearn | shears | sheartail | shearwater |
