Sheer

How to spell sheer

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sheer

What does sheer mean?

1. adjectiveUsed to emphasise the pure or absolute degree of something, with nothing else involved.
2. adjectiveOf a cliff or drop, almost perpendicular and very steep.
3. adjectiveOf cloth, so fine and thin that it is almost transparent.

Sheer in a sentence

• Finishing the marathon was a matter of sheer determination.

• The path ended at a sheer drop down to the rocks below.

• She hung sheer curtains that let the morning light through.

• The survivors were found by sheer luck during the storm.

• Hikers stared up at the sheer rock face above the valley.

• The dress was made from a sheer silk that draped softly.

Where does sheer come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Sheer comes from an Old English adjective 'scir', meaning 'bright', 'clear', or 'pure', reinforced by the related Old Norse 'skǣrr' with the same sense of brightness and cleanness. The early meaning had nothing to do with steepness or thinness; it described something pure or unmixed, as in pure water or clear light. By the late medieval and early modern period the idea of 'pure and nothing else' developed into the intensifying use we still have, as in 'sheer nonsense' or 'sheer luck', meaning utter and unqualified. The senses of a near-vertical drop and of very thin, almost transparent fabric grew from the same notion of something unbroken, clean, and without obstruction. It shares an ancestry with words tied to shining and clearness, and the spelling keeps the double 'ee' that separates it on the page from its homophone 'shear', the verb for cutting.

How the word is built

• sheer (single root from Old English/Old Norse 'skǣr', bright, pure; no affixes)

Words that sound like sheer

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• shear: To cut the wool or fleece from a sheep, or to clip something with a blade.