SHEARING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does shearing mean? 

• SHEARING (noun)
  The noun SHEARING has 1 sense:

1. removing by cutting off or clipping

  Familiarity information: SHEARING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SHEARING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Removing by cutting off or clipping

Classified under:

Nouns denoting acts or actions

Hypernyms ("shearing" is a kind of...):

cut; cutting; cutting off (the act of shortening something by chopping off the ends)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "shearing"):

sheepshearing (act of shearing sheep)

Derivation:

shear (cut with shears)

shear (cut or cut through with shears)

shear (shear the wool from)

 Context examples 

It was a wonderful sight to see at least a hundred creatures of such enormous size and hideous appearance all swooping like swallows with swift, shearing wing-strokes above us; but soon we realized that it was not one on which we could afford to linger.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When the cochlea moves in response to sound, a slight shearing force occurs between the basilar and tectorial membranes, the stereocilia bend and send electrical impulses to the brain via the eighth cranial nerve.

(Inner Hair Cell of the Organ of the Corti, NCI Thesaurus)

I don't know whether the shearing sobered our black sheep, but I do know that in all Washington I couldn't find anything beautiful enough to be bought with the five-and-twenty dollars my good girl sent me.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)