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PlainSpell

sheer

UK /ʃɪə̯/adjective, noun, verb

sheer is spelled S-H-E-E-R: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 10 times per million words in written English, the 7,009th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “shear vs sheer” about 2,400 times a month (Google, United States). As an adjective, sheer means “Very thin or transparent” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in sheer?

Letters5: S-H-E-E-R
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing10 times per million words; the 7,009th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Rhymes with
Same letters

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is sheer?

Sheer appears 10 times per million words in written English, the 7,009th most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce sheer?

  • UK /ʃɪə̯/
  • British /ʃɪː/
  • British /ˈʃɪj.ə/

Sheer has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-sheer.ogg, En-us-sheer.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with sheer

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

shear vs sheer2,400 G

Also written: shear.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with sheer?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as sheer from its last stressed vowel (/ɪə/, British pronunciation):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: herse.

Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).

Forms of sheer

  • sheerer comparative
  • more sheer comparative
  • sheerest superlative
  • most sheer superlative
  • sheers plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • sheering participle, present
  • sheered participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does sheer mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Very thin or transparent.

    Her light, sheer dress caught everyone’s attention.

  2. 2

    obsoletePure in composition; unmixed; unadulterated.

  3. 3

    Downright; complete; pure.

    I think it is sheer genius to invent such a thing.

  4. 4

    Used to emphasize the amount or degree of something.

    The army's sheer size made it impossible to resist.

  5. 5

    Very steep; almost vertical or perpendicular.

    It was a sheer drop of 180 feet.

noun

  1. 1

    A sheer curtain or fabric.

    Use sheers to maximize natural light.

  2. 2

    The curve of the main deck or gunwale from bow to stern.

  3. 3

    An abrupt swerve from the course of a ship.

verb

  1. 1

    To swerve from a course.

  2. 2

    obsoleteObsolete spelling of shear.

adverb

  1. 1

    archaicClean; completely; at once.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Sheer in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchtransparent, diaphane (very thin or transparent), pur, absolu, total (downright; complete), vertical (straight up and down; vertical; perpendicular)
Germanhauchdünn, transparent, durchsichtig (very thin or transparent), bloß, schier, pur ((used to emphasize))
Portuguesefino (very thin or transparent), direto (straight up and down; vertical; perpendicular)
Spanishfino, transparente, muy delgado (very thin or transparent), puro, mero, gran (downright; complete)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does sheer come from?

From Middle English shere, scheere, schere, skere, from Old English sċǣre (“pure, sheer; shining, clear”), from Proto-Germanic *skairiz; supplanted the semantically close shire (dialectal), from Middle English schyre, schire, shire, shir, from Old English sċīr (“clear, bright; brilliant, gleaming, shining, splendid, resplendent; pure”), beside which existed Middle English skyr, from Old Norse skírr (“pure, bright, clear”), both from Proto-Germanic *skīriz (“pure, sheer”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₁y- (“luster, gloss, shadow”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after sheer