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# shear

«shear» in Mova's school dictionary: **to cut off its wool** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

verb (shear, shears, sheared, shorn or sheared, shearing); noun (shears = big scissors; shear in science)

### meaning for a pupil

1) To shear a sheep is to cut off its wool. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#m1)

2) To shear can mean to cut or break something off, often by a strong sideways force: the bolt sheared off. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#m2)

3) Shears (plural) are large scissors for cutting hedges, grass or wool. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#m3)

4) (science) Shear is a force that pushes parts of something sideways in opposite directions, like rubbing your hands together. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#m4)

### sense in the lessons

Farming and everyday life: sheep shearing happens in spring in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and Ireland; shearers can shear hundreds of sheep a day. Gardening: hedge shears. Science and engineering: shear forces can snap bolts or make rocks slide in an earthquake; «wind shear» is dangerous for planes.

### examples

- The farmer will shear the sheep in spring. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#x1)
- The sheep looked tiny after it was shorn. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#x2)
- Grandpa trims the hedge with garden shears. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#x3)
- The strong wind sheared a branch off the tree. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#x4)
- Sheep shearing is a big sport in New Zealand. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#x5)
- In science we learned how shear forces break things. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#x6)
- The shearers worked fast all day. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/#x7)

### note

Homophone trap: «shear» (cut) sounds like «sheer» (very steep; complete; see-through, as in sheer curtains). Past participle: shorn (for sheep or hair) or sheared (for metal). «Shears» is plural like «scissors»: «a pair of shears».

### In the corpora

- [Use garden tools only with a grown-up; lay a rake teeth down and carry shears closed and pointing down.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/everyday/229-gardens-and-forests/9/)
- [Now Laban was gone to shear his sheep.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/torah/jps/GEN.954/)
- [And David heard in the wilderness that Nabal was shearing his sheep.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/neviim/jps/1SA.725/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «shear» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/S/shear/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.