Word Confusion: Shears versus Sheers

Plural noun: shears
Gerund: shearing

Third person present verb: shears
Past tense: sheared, shore (past tense in Australia and New Zealand??)
Past participle: sheared, shorn [Australia & New Zealand] Present participle: shearing

Plural noun: sheers
Gerund: sheering

Third person present verb: sheers
Past tense or past participle: sheered
Present participle: sheering

Plural noun:
A cutting instrument in which two blades move past each other, like scissors, but typically larger ¹

Scissors used for tailoring

Garden shears

Verb, intransitive:
To cut or cut through something with a sharp instrument ²

To progress by or as if by cutting

[Mechanics, Geology] To become fractured along a plane as a result of forces acting parallel to the plane

[Chiefly Scottish] To reap crops with a sickle

Verb, transitive:
Cut the wool off a sheep or other animal ²

Cut something off with scissors or shears

Break off or cause to break off owing to a structural strain

[Of a fabric] Very thin, diaphanous

Perpendicular or nearly so

[British; obsolete] Bright

• Shining

Adverb:
Perpendicularly ¹

• Down or up very steeply
• Vertically

[Archaic] Completely

• Right

Noun:
A very fine or diaphanous fabric or article ¹

A sudden deviation from a course

[Shipbuilding] The curved fore and aft line formed by the uppermost plank of a boat ³

[Nautical] Position of a vessel riding toward its anchor

Plural noun:
Very fine or diaphanous curtains or draperies ¹

[Nautical] An apparatus consisting of two masts, or legs, secured together at the top, and provided with ropes or chains and pulleys

Verb, intransitive:
[Nautical] Swerve or change course quickly ²

• Avoid or move away from an unpleasant topic

Verb, transitive:
Typically of a boat or ship swerving or changing course quickly ²

[Shipbuilding] To give sheer to a hull

Shear forces often result in shear strain.

Plural noun:
I’ll need the shears to cut through this.

Get the hedge shears.

Pauline has sewing shears and paper ones.

Verb, intransitive:
The cruiser sheared through the water.

Shear stress results in slippage and translation (Tulane University).

Along some faults, rocks are sheared or drawn out by ductile deformation along the fault (Tulane University).

We’ll be shearing the crops soon.

Get those sheep sheared.

The derailleur sheared and jammed in the rear wheel.

Verb, transitive:
I’ll shear off all that fleece.

In that last recession, the richest man in the US was shorn of nearly $2 billion.

That bolt was almost completely sheared off.

They used a sheer, white chiffon for the curtains.

she giggled with sheer delight.

Marriage is sheer hard work.

The sheer ice walls loomed above us.

Adverb:
The ridge fell sheer, in steep crags.

She went sheer forward when the door was open.

Noun:
“When looking at the boat hull from the side, sheer is the line where the hull meets the gunwale” (DeMerchant).

We took a sheer back to port.

She took a big sheer to starboard.

Her sheer broke when she swung right.

Plural noun:
I want the sheers on those windows.

“The sheers has one motion on its steps describing an arc, and is inclined from the perpendicular to a greater or less extent as required, by slacking or hauling on the guy-rope or fall of the sheer-tackle” (Knight, 2,141).

Verb, intransitive:
The boat sheered off to beach further up the coast.

Her mind sheered away from images she didn’t want to dwell on.

Verb, transitive:
The boat sheered away from the sandbank.

He sheered off from the topic.

“Shoot the ship ahead of her anchor, or sheer her clear of it, upon the same tack as she is meant to shoot up the next tide . . .” (Blunt, 85).

1. 1610s sceran, originally meaning cut through with a weapon, is of Germanic origin and related to the Dutch and German scheren, from a base meaning divide, shear, or shave.

   It is also a unit of measure of the age of a sheep.

   1850 in the scientific and mechanical sense of type of strain.

2. Old English sceran, scieran with a past tense of scear and the past participle scoren meaning to cleave, hew, cut with a sharp instrument; cut (hair); shear (sheep), from the Proto-Germanic *sker- meaning to cut.

   Compare to the Old Norse and the Old Frisian skera, the Dutch scheren, the German scheren meaning to shear, which are from PIE *(s)ker- meaning to cut, to scrape, to hack.

   Compare these with the Sanskrit krnati meaning hurts, wounds, kills; krntati meaning cuts; the Hittite karsh- meaning to cut off; the Greek keirein meaning to cut, shear; the Latin curtus meaning short; the Lithuanian skiriu meaning to separate; the Old Irish scaraim meaning I separate; and, the Welsh ysgar meaning to separate or ysgyr meaning fragment.

1. Middle English, in the sense of exempt, cleared, is probably an alteration of the dialectical shire meaning pure, clear, which is from the Germanic base of the verb shine.

   In the mid 16th century, the word was used to describe clear, pure water and very thin fabric.

2. Early 17th century and is perhaps from Middle Low German scheren meaning to shear.
3. Late 17th century and probably from the noun shear.