shear
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
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5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "shear", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "shear" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "shear" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
shear is aEnglishverb. It means: To remove the fleece from (a sheep, llama, etc.) by clipping. Pronounced /ʃɪə(ɹ)/. Often confused with star and shed.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | shear |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ʃɪə(ɹ)/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #17,239 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for shear is 5 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ʃɪə(ɹ)/. Corpus data places it at rank #17,239 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 10 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for shear, with forms such as "hsear", "sehar", and "shearr". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "star", "shed", "soar", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sheren, scheren, from Old English sċieran (“to shear; to shave”), from Proto-West Germanic *skeran, from Proto-Germanic *skeraną, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Cognate with West Frisian skarre, Low German scheren, Dutch s… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is shear, spelled S-H-E-A-R, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To remove the fleece from (a sheep, llama, etc.) by clipping.
- 2To cut the hair of (a person).
- 3To cut, originally with a sword or other bladed weapon, now usually with shears, or as if using shears.
- 4To deform because of forces pushing in opposite directions.
- 5To change in direction or speed.
- 6To transform by displacing every point in a direction parallel to some given line by a distance proportional to the point’s distance from the line.
- 7To make a vertical cut in coal.
- 8(also 'shear off') To break or suddenly separate because of excessive force, eg. a bolt.
- 9To reap, as grain.
- 10To deprive of property; to fleece.
Etymology
From Middle English sheren, scheren, from Old English sċieran (“to shear; to shave”), from Proto-West Germanic *skeran, from Proto-Germanic *skeraną, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut”). Cognate with West Frisian skarre, Low German scheren, Dutch scheren, German scheren, Danish skære, Norwegian Bokmål skjære, Norwegian Nynorsk skjera, Swedish skära, Finnish keritä; and (from Indo-European) with Ancient Greek κείρω (keírō, “to cut off”), Latin caro (“flesh”), Albanian shqerr (“to tear, cut”), harr (“to cut, to mow”), Lithuanian ski̇̀rti (“separate”), Welsh ysgar (“separate”). See also sharp.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: hsear,sehar,shearr,shera,shhear,sshear
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for shear
Misspelling Variants of "shear"
Frequency rank: #17,239 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: