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say it: shir
sheer is an adjective, verb and adverb meaning "complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers". It is pronounced /ˈʃɪɹ/ — shir. It carries 8 recorded senses.
complete and without restriction or qualification; sometimes used informally as intensifiers
“absolute freedom”
“an absolute dimwit”
“a downright lie”
“out-and-out mayhem”
“an out-and-out lie”
“a rank outsider”
“many right-down vices”
“got the job through sheer persistence”
“sheer stupidity”
so thin as to transmit light
“a hat with a diaphanous veil”
“filmy wings of a moth”
“gauzy clouds of dandelion down”
“gossamer cobwebs”
“sheer silk stockings”
“transparent chiffon”
“vaporous silks”
straight up or down without a break
directly
“he fell sheer into the water”
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.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for sheer come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.