All 20 Uses of
sheer
in
The Two Towers
- Below it twenty fathoms or more, there was a wide and rugged shelf which ended suddenly in the brink of a sheer cliff: the East Wall of Rohan.†
Chpt 3.2
- At the far end the rock-wall was sheer, but at the bottom it had been hollowed back into a shallow bay with an arched roof: the only roof of the hall, save the branches of the trees, which at the inner end overshadowed all the ground leaving only a broad open path in the middle.†
Chpt 3.4
- A little stream escaped from the springs above, and leaving the main water, fell tinkling down the sheer face of the wall, pouring in silver drops, like a fine curtain in front of the arched bay.†
Chpt 3.4
- On that side a narrow path ran round towards the great gate, between the wall and the sheer brink of the Rock.†
Chpt 3.7
- Upon the east too sheer and stony was the valley's side; upon the left, from the west, their final doom approached.†
Chpt 3.7
- This was the only entrance to the tower; but many tall windows were cut with deep embrasures in the climbing walls: far up they peered like little eyes in the sheer faces of the horns.†
Chpt 3.10
- But always they found its outward faces sheer, high and impassable, frowning over the plain below; beyond its tumbled skirts lay livid festering marshes where nothing moved and not even a bird was to be seen.†
Chpt 4.1
- On the further side it reared up again, many fathoms at a single leap: a great grey cliff loomed before them, cut sheer down as if by a knife stroke.†
Chpt 4.1
- The outer fall was indeed no longer sheer, but sloped outwards a little.†
Chpt 4.1 *
- There was one awkward spot, where there was no ledge and the wall was sheer and even undercut for a short space; there he slipped and swung out on the silver line.†
Chpt 4.1
- Nor did Sam find any nook or hollow to shelter in: only bare stony slopes frowned over by the cliff, which now rose again, higher and more sheer as they went back.†
Chpt 4.1
- Down the face of a precipice, sheer and almost smooth it seemed in the pale moonlight, a small black shape was moving with its thin limbs splayed out.†
Chpt 4.1
- From that point there was a sheer drop, for the cliff was slightly undercut, and even Gollum could not find a hold of any kind.
Chpt 4.1 *sheer = so steep it is almost vertical
- High cliffs lowered upon either side, and thrust forward from its mouth were two sheer hills, black-boned and bare.†
Chpt 4.3
- They had come to the end of a long cutting, deep, and sheer-sided in the middle, by which the road clove its way through a stony ridge.†
Chpt 4.4
- At their right, eastwards, the torrent fell, splashing over many terraces, and then, pouring down a steep race, it filled a smooth-hewn channel with a dark force of water flecked with foam, and curling and rushing almost at their feet it plunged sheer over the edge that yawned upon their left.†
Chpt 4.6
- On your west is an edge where the land falls into the great vales, sometimes suddenly and sheer, sometimes in long hillsides.†
Chpt 4.7
- Ahead of them there was a bay in the valley-side, and round the head of this the path went on, no more than a wide ledge with a chasm on the right; across the sheer southward face of the mountain it crawled upwards, until it disappeared into the blackness above.†
Chpt 4.8
- The hobbits struggled on, until at last they were clinging with desperate fingers to the steps ahead, and forcing their aching knees to bend and straighten; and ever as the stair cut its way deeper into the sheer mountain the rocky walls rose higher and higher above their heads.†
Chpt 4.8
- ' As the sheer sides of the Cleft closed about him, before he reached the actual summit, before he looked at last on the path descending into the Nameless Land. he turned.†
Chpt 4.10
Definitions:
-
(sheer as in: a sheer cliff) so steep it is almost vertical
-
(sheer as in: a sheer blouse) typically of fabric: very thin and delicate -- often transparent