shear

1. 1.

   (physics) a deformation of an object in which parallel planes remain parallel but are shifted in a direction parallel to themselves

   “the shear changed the quadrilateral into a parallelogram”

   Broaderdeformation

   physics

2. 2.

   a large edge tool that cuts sheet metal by passing a blade through it

   Broaderedge tool

Other forms of shear

plural

shears·

past tense

sheared·

present participle

shearing·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about shear

What does shear mean?

shear means "cut with shears". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in shear?

shear has 1 syllable: shear. In IPA it is /ˈʃɪɹ/.

What is another word for shear?

Close synonyms include fleece. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is shear a common word?

shear is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.

What rhymes with shear?

3 words rhyme with shear. Rhymes are matched on the phonemes from the last stressed vowel onward, which is the definition a reader has in their head.