The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Sheer \Sheer\, n.
   1. (Naut.)
      (a) The longitudinal upward curvature of the deck,
          gunwale, and lines of a vessel, as when viewed from
          the side.
      (b) The position of a vessel riding at single anchor and
          swinging clear of it.
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   2. A turn or change in a course.
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            Give the canoe a sheer and get nearer to the shore.
                                                  --Cooper.
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   3. pl. Shears See Shear.
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   Sheer batten (Shipbuilding), a long strip of wood to guide
      the carpenters in following the sheer plan.

   Sheer boom, a boom slanting across a stream to direct
      floating logs to one side.

   Sheer hulk. See Shear hulk, under Hulk.

   Sheer plan, or Sheer draught (Shipbuilding), a projection
      of the lines of a vessel on a vertical longitudinal plane
      passing through the middle line of the vessel.

   Sheer pole (Naut.), an iron rod lashed to the shrouds just
      above the dead-eyes and parallel to the ratlines.

   Sheer strake (Shipbuilding), the strake under the gunwale
      on the top side. --Totten.

   To break sheer (Naut.), to deviate from sheer, and risk
      fouling the anchor.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Sheer \Sheer\, adv.
   Clean; quite; at once. [Obs.] --Milton.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Sheer \Sheer\, v. t. [See Shear.]
   To shear. [Obs.] --Dryden.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Sheer \Sheer\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Sheered; p. pr. & vb. n.
   Sheering.] [D. sheren to shear, cut, withdraw, warp. See
   Shear.]
   To decline or deviate from the line of the proper course; to
   turn aside; to swerve; as, a ship sheers from her course; a
   horse sheers at a bicycle.
   [1913 Webster]

   To sheer off, to turn or move aside to a distance; to move
      away.

   To sheer up, to approach obliquely.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:

Sheer \Sheer\, a. [OE. shere, skere, pure, bright, Icel. sk?rr;
   akin to sk[imac]rr, AS. sc[imac]r, OS. sk[imac]ri, MHG.
   sch[imac]r, G. schier, Dan. sk?r, Sw. sk[aum]r, Goth. skeirs
   clear, and E. shine. [root]157. See Shine, v. i.]
   1. Bright; clear; pure; unmixed. "Sheer ale." --Shak.
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            Thou sheer, immaculate, and silver fountain. --Shak.
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   2. Very thin or transparent; -- applied to fabrics; as, sheer
      muslin.
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   3. Being only what it seems to be; obvious; simple; mere;
      downright; as, sheer folly; sheer nonsense. "A sheer
      impossibility." --De Quincey.
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            It is not a sheer advantage to have several strings
            to one's bow.                         --M. Arnold.
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   4. Stright up and down; vertical; prpendicular.
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            A sheer precipice of a thousand feet. --J. D.
                                                  Hooker.
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            It was at least
            Nine roods of sheer ascent.           --Wordsworth.
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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):

sheer
    adv 1: straight up or down without a break [syn: sheer,
           perpendicularly]
    2: directly; "he fell sheer into the water"
    adj 1: 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" [syn: absolute,
           downright, out-and-out(a), rank(a), right-down,
           sheer(a)]
    2: not mixed with extraneous elements; "plain water"; "sheer
       wine"; "not an unmixed blessing" [syn: plain, sheer,
       unmingled, unmixed]
    3: 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" [syn: bluff, bold,
       sheer]
    4: 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" [syn: diaphanous, filmy,
       gauzy, gauze-like, gossamer, see-through, sheer,
       transparent, vaporous, vapourous, cobwebby]
    v 1: turn sharply; change direction abruptly; "The car cut to
         the left at the intersection"; "The motorbike veered to the
         right" [syn: swerve, sheer, curve, trend, veer,
         slue, slew, cut]
    2: cause to sheer; "She sheered her car around the obstacle"

Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:

263 Moby Thesaurus words for "sheer":
   aberrancy, aberration, about ship, abrupt, absolute, absolutely,
   airy, all-embracing, all-encompassing, all-out, all-pervading,
   angle, angle off, aplomb, arduous, arrant, at right angles, avert,
   back and fill, bare, bear away, bear off, bear to starboard, beat,
   beat about, bend, bent, bias, blasted, blessed, bluff, bold, born,
   box off, branch off, branching off, break, breakneck, bring about,
   bring round, broad-based, cant, cant round, cast, cast about,
   change course, change the bearing, change the heading, chiffon,
   circuitousness, clarified, clean, clear, clear as crystal,
   come about, complete, comprehensive, confounded, congenital,
   consummate, corner, crook, crystal, crystal-clear, crystalline,
   curve, declination, deep-dyed, deflect, depart from, departure,
   detour, deviance, deviancy, deviate, deviation, deviousness,
   diaphane, diaphanous, digress, digression, dip, discursion,
   distilled, divagate, divagation, divaricate, divarication, diverge,
   divergence, diversion, divert, dogleg, double, double a point,
   downright, drift, drifting, dyed-in-the-wool, egregious, errantry,
   excursion, excursus, exhaustive, exorbitation, fetch about, filmy,
   flimsy, gauzy, go about, gossamer, gossamery, gross, gybe, hairpin,
   headlong, heave round, heel, indirection, infernal, intensive,
   irretrievably, irrevocably, jibe, jibe all standing,
   light-pervious, limpid, lucid, lurch, mere, miss stays, naked,
   neat, nonopaque, oblique, obliquity, omnibus, omnipresent,
   orthodiagonal, orthogonal, out-and-out, outright, peekaboo,
   pellucid, pererration, perfect, perfectly, perpendicular,
   perpendicularly, pervasive, pivot, plain, plumb, plunging, ply,
   precipitate, precipitous, pure, purified, put about, put back,
   quite, radical, rambling, rank, rapid, rectified, regular,
   revealing, right, right-angle, right-angled, right-angular,
   round a point, see-through, sharp, sheerly, shift, shifting,
   shifting course, shifting path, sideling, simple, skew, slant,
   slew, slue, square, stark, steep, stickle, straight, straight-up,
   straight-up-and-down, straying, sway, sweep, sweeping, swerve,
   swerving, swing round, swing the stern, swinging, tack, thin,
   thorough, thoroughgoing, through-and-through, throw about, total,
   translucent, transparent, transpicuous, trend, turn, turn aside,
   turn back, turning, twist, ubiquitous, unadorned, unadulterated,
   unalloyed, unblended, unclouded, uncombined, uncompounded,
   unconditional, uncorrupted, undiluted, unenhanced, unfortified,
   universal, unleavened, unmingled, unmitigated, unmixed,
   unqualified, unrelievedly, unreserved, unrestricted,
   unsophisticated, untinged, up and down, up-and-down, utter,
   variation, vary, veer, veritable, vertical, volte-face, wandering,
   warp, wear, wear ship, wheel, whip, whirl, wholesale, wind, yaw,
   zigzag