shear
shear
verb (shears, sheared, shorn/sheared, shearing)
/ʃɪə(r)/
1 ​transitive shear something to cut the wool off a sheep
It was time for the sheep to be shorn.
sheep shearing
TOPICS Farming C2
2 ​transitive shear something (formal) to cut off somebody’s hair
shorn hair
The prisoners’ hair was shorn.
TOPICS Appearance C2
3 ​intransitive, transitive shear (something) (off) (specialist) (especially of metal) to break under pressure; to cut through something and make it break
The bolts holding the wheel in place sheared off.
Phrasal Verbs
be shorn of
Word Origin
Old English sceran (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’.