All 5 Uses
sheer
in
The Call of the Wild
(Edited)
- He was crying with sheer rage and eagerness as he circled back and forth for a chance to spring in.
p. 49.6sheer = complete
- He was mastered by the sheer surging of life, the tidal wave of being, the perfect joy of each separate muscle, joint, and sinew in that it was everything that was not death...
p. 68.1 *sheer = complete and without restriction (used for emphasis)
- It advertised his callowness—a callowness sheer and unutterable.
p. 97.9sheer = complete
- The boat flirted over and snubbed in to the bank bottom up, while Thornton, flung sheer out of it, was carried down-stream toward the worst part of the rapids, a stretch of wild water in which no swimmer could live.
p. 137.2sheer = completely
- Life streamed through him in splendid flood, glad and rampant, until it seemed that it would burst him asunder in sheer ecstasy and pour forth generously over the world.
p. 167.7sheer = complete
Definitions:
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(1)
(sheer as in: a sheer blouse) typically of fabric: very thin and delicate -- often transparent
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(2)
(sheer as in: sheer fun) complete or pure -- without restriction, qualification, or other elements (used for emphasis)
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(3)
(sheer as in: a sheer cliff) so steep it is almost vertical
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(4)
(sheer as in: sheer to the left) change direction; or to cause such a change of direction -- usually abruptly
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(5)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) Sheer can also be an alternative spelling for shear (to cut). Sheers can refer to light, transparent curtains.