shear

1. v. t. To cut, clip, or sever anything from with shears or a like instrument; as, to shear sheep; to shear cloth. Source: opted

2. 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. Source: opted

3. v. t. To reap, as grain. Source: opted

4. v. t. Fig.: To deprive of property; to fleece. Source: opted

5. v. t. To produce a change of shape in by a shear. See Shear, n., 4. Source: opted

6. v. t. A pair of shears; -- now always used in the plural, but formerly also in the singular. See Shears. Source: opted

7. v. t. A shearing; -- used in designating the age of sheep. Source: opted

8. 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. Source: opted

9. 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. Source: opted

10. v. i. To deviate. See Sheer. Source: opted

11. 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. Source: opted

12. n. (physics) a deformation of an object in which parallel planes remain parallel but are shifted in a direction parallel to themselves Source: wordnet

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