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sheer English

Meaning sheer meaning

What does sheer mean?
Definitions in simple English

sheer

To sheer is to turn sharply or change direction quickly. The lion hoped that one of the deer would sheer off from the herd so he could catch it.

sheer

Sheer is total, complete, without anything to hold it back. When people heard the air raid siren they ran around in sheer panic. Something that is sheer is very steep, almost vertical. They came to the edge of the cliff, with a sheer drop into the valley below. Sheer material is so thin you can almost see through it. She wore her high heel shoes and her sheer silk stockings.

sheer

(= absolute, downright, out-and-out, rank, right-down) 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 (= plain, unmixed) not mixed with extraneous elements plain water sheer wine not an unmixed blessing (= veer, cut) turn sharply; change direction abruptly The car cut to the left at the intersection The motorbike veered to the right (= bluff, bold) very steep; having a prominent and almost vertical front a bluff headland where the bold chalk cliffs of England rise a sheer descent of rock directly he fell sheer into the water straight up or down without a break cause to sheer She sheered her car around the obstacle (= diaphanous, filmy, gauzy, gossamer, transparent, vaporous) 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

Synonyms sheer synonyms

What other words have the same or similar meaning as sheer?

Topics sheer topics

What do people use sheer to talk about?

Examples sheer examples

How do I use sheer in a sentence?

Simple sentences

It was sheer coincidence that Mary and I were on the same train.
It is a sheer waste of time.
Leaving the children alone was sheer thoughtlessness.
Not only was their sheer amount stunning, but also the size of every individual one: magnificent pumpkins, as far as the eye could see.
This is sheer nonsense.
We survived by sheer luck.
A calamity was avoided by sheer luck.
Tom experienced the whole gamut of emotions from sheer joy to utter despair during his relationship with Mary.
Chocolate and strawberries eaten together is sheer heaven.
It's sheer madness.
About half of everything he says is sheer fiction.
It was sheer torture.

Movie subtitles

Is it sheer impudence or lunacy or what?
Her sheer speed!
Rest of shoreline's sheer precipice, hundreds of feet high. And across the base of the peninsula, cutting it off from the rest of the island, is a wall.
Sheer folly on your part.
Some day, by sheer accident, you're going to say something funny, Huck.
Of course, for sheer variety, give me an English summer.
A thousand dollars. I'll give it to the Milk Fund. If you ever have any money to the Milk Fund it would churn out of sheer astonishment.
Waste always makes me angry and that's what this is, sheer waste!
Chips, and you'll allow me to refer to him as Chips seeing that 37 years ago this autumn he gave me a thrashing for sheer bone laziness.
It's sheer impudence!
Sheer slander!
Sheer magic, isn't it?
Skill, old boy, sheer undiluted skill.
Sheer escapism. I don't care.
Thank you, sir, but it's just sheer luck.
Rest of shoreline's sheer precipice, hundreds of feet high.
These are rather sheer, I think.
Sheer nonsense.!
Sheer heaven, my dears, sheer heaven!
Sheer cliffs 1000 to 1500 feet in height and running out of sight in either direction.
I want to clear out from sheer boredom.
In fact, such solid authorities as Gerhardie, Pendugast and Picard have characterized the entire Wundt-Farbhalf theory as sheer nonsense.
I'm angry. Waste always makes me angry and that's what this is, sheer waste!
A sheer waste of postage.
Toward the sheer line.
She thinks she has to cover the distance by sheer lungpower.
Fainted out of sheer cussedness, huh?
By sheer coincidence, I was reading an article that seemed your picture.
Nowadays, it's sheer madness.
All this is waste, sheer waste under a leadership of chuckleheads.
Johnny, they're so sheer.
A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk. would be a sheer delight.
The sheer weight of it.
All that stuff about Lina and me is sheer publicity.
Made of imported printed sheer, with parasol to match.
The law of the village forced dueling killers to flee, who were then chased through sheer formality.
I hit him out of sheer luck.

News and current affairs

When it comes to tackling complex political and cultural conflicts, forging international and regional alliances around a legitimate objective is more important than sheer military capacity.
In its sheer scale, this may be the largest single energy privatization ever attempted in Europe.
Their increasing strength is a reflection of robust economic growth, which promotes production for the market rather than sheer redistribution of resources, implying a new sort of politics.
The sheer unseemliness of what is happening raises blood pressure as well as eyebrows.
Like America, Britain has learned the hard way the limits of what sheer military power can achieve, and also the devastating implications of its misuse for its reputation in the Muslim world and beyond.
From what we have seen over the past five years, the correct answer probably contains more than a little bad faith and sheer ineptitude.
If I had to bet on a cause, I would put my money on sheer incompetence.
After all, when China and India close even half the income gap separating them from the industrial core of the world economy, the sheer size of their populations alone will guarantee that they become very great powers.
Meanwhile, donors' sheer clout dilutes the accountability of developing countries' officials and elected representatives to their own people.
It invokes its effects not by sheer destruction, but by dramatizing atrocious acts against civilians.
It works not by sheer destruction, but rather by dramatizing atrocious acts against civilians.
It is sheer fantasy to believe that the threat of an aid cutoff would enable the US and Europe to influence the course of Ethiopia's complex internal politics.
The sheer nihilistic irrationality of terrorism strains and tests our own beliefs like nothing else can.
But the Holocaust played out most gruesomely in Eastern Europe, owing to the sheer number of Jews in the region and the incomparable ruthlessness of the Nazi occupation regimes.
Peter Mugyenyi, who runs the Joint Clinical Research Center, told me that part of the problem is the sheer weight of numbers.
Voters of the center or even the center-right are disappointed, too, by their president's lack of charisma, if not sheer incompetence.
A shift to external demand is not there for the asking. It must be earned by hard work, sheer determination, and a long overdue competitive revival.
Second, the sheer size of today's global economy means that there is now room for deep and liquid markets in more than one currency.
Yet, given the sheer scale of military spending today, one can wonder if it is rational.
Indeed, the preparations for negotiations on a new agreement among the EU institutions are less focused on the nature of the output of the legislation than on the sheer number of laws now on the books.
But it will take courage and sheer determination to tackle what is perhaps the biggest obstacle of all - resistance from deeply entrenched local and provincial power blocs.
Alas, India's voice was drowned out, not by China's attempts to provide medicine and education to Africa, but by the sheer magnitude of Chinese state-owned enterprises' investments in physical infrastructure.
These partly reflect China's sheer size and impact.
But the sheer volume of China's TV programming makes maintaining such control difficult.
It works not by sheer destruction, but rather by dramatizing atrocious acts against civilians. It is like jiu jitsu: the weaker adversary wins by leveraging the power of the stronger against itself.

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