sheer
adjective, -er, -est, adverb, noun
–adjective
1. transparently thin; diaphanous, as some fabrics: sheer stockings.
2. unmixed with anything else: We drilled a hundred feet through sheer rock.
3. unqualified; utter: sheer nonsense.
4. extending down or up very steeply; almost completely vertical: a sheer descent of rock.
5. British Obsolete. bright; shining.
–adverb 6. clear; completely; quite: ran sheer into the thick of battle.
7. perpendicularly; vertically; down or up very steeply.
–noun
8. a thin, diaphanous material, as chiffon or voile.

shear
verb, sheared, sheared or shorn, shear·ing, noun
–verb (used with object)
1. to cut (something).
2. to remove by or as if by cutting or clipping with a sharp instrument: to shear wool from sheep.
3. to cut or clip the hair, fleece, wool, etc., from: to shear sheep.
4. to strip or deprive (usually fol. by of): to shear someone of power.
5. Chiefly Scot. to reap with a sickle.
6. to travel through by or as if by cutting: Chimney swifts sheared the air.
–verb (used without object)
7. to cut or cut through something with a sharp instrument.
8. to progress by or as if by cutting: The cruiser sheared through the water.
9. Mechanics, Geology. to become fractured along a plane as a result of forces acting parallel to the plane.
10. Chiefly Scot. to reap crops with a sickle.