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   shear

   /ʃɪə/

   verb

   • 1. cut the wool off (a sheep or other animal): "Paul has never sheared a sheep before"
   • ▪ cut off (something such as hair, wool, or grass), with scissors or shears: "I'll shear off all that fleece"
   • ▪ have something cut off: "they were shorn of their hair"
   • 2. break off or cause to break off, owing to a structural strain: "the gear sheared and jammed in the rear wheel"

   noun

   • 1. a strain produced by pressure in the structure of a substance, when its layers are laterally shifted in relation to each other: "the water from the upper source is emitted at the same speed as the main flow; there is thus no shear"

   Word Origin Old Englishsceran (originally in the sense ‘cut through with a weapon’), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German scheren, from a base meaning ‘divide, shear, shave’.

   Derivatives

   • 1. shearer noun

   Scrabble Points: 8

   • S

     1

   • H

     4

   • E

     1

   • A

     1

   • R

     1

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