to cut, clip, or sever anything from with shears or a like instrument; as, to shear sheep; to shear cloth.-to separate or sever with shears or a similar instrument; to cut off; to clip (something) from a surface; as, to shear a fleece.-to reap, as grain.-fig.: to deprive of property; to fleece.-to produce a change of shape in by a shear. see shear, n., 4.-a pair of shears; -- now always used in the plural, but formerly also in the singular. see shears.-a shearing; -- used in designating the age of sheep.-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.-a strain, or change of shape, of an elastic body, consisting of an extension in one direction, an equal compression in a perpendicular direction, with an unchanged magnitude in the third direction.-to deviate. see sheer.-to become more or less completely divided, as a body under the action of forces, by the sliding of two contiguous parts relatively to each other in a direction parallel to their plane of contact.