Definition of shear

• v. t. - To cut, clip, or sever anything from with shears or a like instrument; as, to shear sheep; to shear cloth.
• v. t. - To separate or sever with shears or a similar instrument; to cut off; to clip (something) from a surface; as, to shear a fleece.
• v. t. - To reap, as grain.
• v. t. - Fig.: To deprive of property; to fleece.
• v. t. - To produce a change of shape in by a shear. See Shear, n., 4.
• v. t. - A pair of shears; -- now always used in the plural, but formerly also in the singular. See Shears.
• v. t. - A shearing; -- used in designating the age of sheep.
• v. t. - An action, resulting from applied forces, which tends to cause two contiguous parts of a body to slide relatively to each other in a direction parallel to their plane of contact; -- also called shearing stress, and tangential stress.
• v. t. - A strain, or change of shape, of an elastic body, consisting of an extension in one direction, an equal compression in a perpendicular direction, with an unchanged magnitude in the third direction.
• v. i. - To deviate. See Sheer.
• v. i. - To become more or less completely divided, as a body under the action of forces, by the sliding of two contiguous parts relatively to each other in a direction parallel to their plane of contact.