Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
sheer (adv., adj., v.)
The verb means “to veer or turn away”: The destroyer sheered off to the east. The adjective can mean “see-through or transparent” (She wore sheer pantyhose), “utter” or “wholly obvious, pure, clear, total, undiluted” (His idea was sheer folly), and “steep or perpendicular” (There was a sheer drop from the headland to the beach). Sheer ice (“pure”?) is probably a relic idiom. Sheer also infrequently appears as a flat adverb: The cliff falls away sheer. As a noun sheer means “a sharp turn” and “the curve of a ship’s hull that makes bow and stern higher than the midship portion.”
