2. To separate or sever with shears or a similar instrument; to cut off; to clip (something) from a surface; as, to shear a fleece. Before the golden tresses . . . were shorn away. Shak.
3. To reap, as grain. [Scot.] Jamieson.
4. Fig.: To deprive of property; to fleece.
5. (Mech.)
Defn: To produce a change of shape in by a shear. See Shear, n., 4.
SHEAR
Shear, n. Etym: [AS. sceara. See Shear, v. t.]
1. A pair of shears; — now always used in the plural, but formerly also in the singular. See Shears. On his head came razor none, nor shear. Chaucer. Short of the wool, and naked from the shear. Dryden.
2. A shearing; — used in designating the age of sheep. After the second shearing, he is a two-sher ram; . . . at the expiration of another year, he is a three-shear ram; the name always taking its date from the time of shearing. Youatt.
3. (Engin.)
Defn: An action, resulting from applied forces, which tends to cause two contiguous parts of a body to slide relatively to each other in a direction parallel to their plane of contact; — also called shearing stress, and tangential stress.