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Shear   Listen
verb
Shear  v. t.  (past sheared or shore;past part. sheared or shorn; pres. part. shearing)  
1.
To cut, clip, or sever anything from with shears or a like instrument; as, to shear sheep; to shear cloth. Note: It is especially applied to the cutting of wool from sheep or their skins, and the nap from cloth.
2.
To separate or sever with shears or a similar instrument; to cut off; to clip (something) from a surface; as, to shear a fleece. "Before the golden tresses... were shorn away."
3.
To reap, as grain. (Scot.)
4.
Fig.: To deprive of property; to fleece.
5.
(Mech.) To produce a change of shape in by a shear. See Shear, n., 4.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Shear" Quotes from Famous Books



... the United States. Being a thousand miles closer that pole than you are in Boston, naturally we come by that distance closer to the great wool industry. Most of our wool here grows on our tongues, and we shear it by this transmutin' process, concerning which you have discoursed so beautiful. But barrin' the shearin' of our wool, we are the mildest, most sheepish fellows you could imagine. I don't reckon now there is ...
— At the Foot of the Rainbow • Gene Stratton-Porter

... the agency of Julius and Octavius was necessary for the continuance of civilization, which was threatened with extinction through the plundering processes of proprietors and proconsuls. The Roman Emperor was the shepherd, who, though he might shear his sheep close to their skins, and not unfrequently convert many of them into mutton, for his own profit or pleasure, would nevertheless protect them against the wolves. He stood between the imperial race, of which he was himself the first member, and all the other races that were to be found ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various

... Portuguese knot. This is a lashing for shear legs, and must be tight enough to prevent the spars slipping on each other; the crossing of the two legs gives a means ...
— Scientific American, Volume XXIV., No. 12, March 18, 1871 • Various

... presence of such considerations, it seems impossible to refrain from thinking that there must be a closer continuity of identity, life, and memory, between successive generations than we generally imagine. To shear the thread of life, and hence of memory, between one generation and its successor, is so to speak, a brutal measure, an act of intellectual butchery, and like all such strong high-handed measures, a sign ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler

... smaller. Its peculiar characteristics are the perforated and striated scutiform area on the front of the cell and the perforated, or apparently perforated pyramidal lateral processes above each avicularium; these processes are much developed, and give the cell the form of a broad inverted shear-head. It seems to be an abundant species in Bass Strait, and it occurs also in New ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray

... that it is his business and duty to cultivate the earth, and not exhaust it; to get two blades of grass this year where but one blade grew before; to gather thirty bushels of corn from the acre which produced but twenty bushels last year; to shear three pounds of wool off the sheep which five years ago gave but two pounds, and so on. He thinks to see how near the agricultural wind he can move and his sails not shake, or with how little labor he can carry his farm through the year and not starve. The poverty of the whole ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... with the fleece she sheared the flesh. The Sheep, writhing with pain, said, "Why do you hurt me so, Mistress? What weight can my blood add to the wool? If you want my flesh, there is the butcher, who will kill me in an instant; but if you want my fleece and wool, there is the shearer, who will shear and not ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop

... mine," replied Don Quixote, "how much astray art thou in thy reckoning: ere they shear me I shall have plucked away and stripped off the beards of all who dare to touch only the tip of a hair ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... Maine, fared no better. To them he only stated that he had found several promising clues and was following them as rapidly as possible, but it all cost money, and would they kindly send a draft on account for necessary expenses? etc., etc. To shear them as close as possible and as long as he could before giving any return for their money was part of his game. All were fish that came to his net, and all were treated alike and robbed from start to finish. When Albert ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn

... with carbine and matchlock, dealing about them with bludgeon and cutlass, and led merrily on by Haultepenne and Elmont armed in proof, at the head of their squadron of lancers. The unfortunate patriots had risen very early in the morning only to shear the wolf. Some were cut to pieces in the streets; others climbed the walls, and threw themselves head foremost into the moat. Many were drowned, and but a very few effected their escape. Justinus de Nassau. sprang over the parapet, and succeeded in swimming the ditch. Kleerhagen, driven ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... skies they were ashen and sober, The streets they were dirty and drear; It was night in the month of October, Of my most immemorial year. Like the skies, I was perfectly sober, As I stopped at the mansion of Shear,— At the Nightingale,—perfectly sober, And the ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte

... said he, "but I tell you again I have no time either to drink or shear. I must be gone before those mad fellows return, and detain me by some ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various

... forsake forsook forsaken freeze froze frozen get got got [gotten] give gave given go went gone grind ground ground grow grew grown hang hung (hanged) hung (hanged) hold held held know knew known lie lay lain ride rode ridden ring rang rung run ran run see saw seen shake shook shaken shear shore (sheared) shorn (sheared) shine shone shone shoot shot shot shrink shrank or shrunk shrunk shrive shrove shriven sing sang or sung sung sink sank or sunk sunk [adj. sunken] sit sat [sate] sat slay slew slain ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell

... equitable, and good, only to another God. Now, God has no associate; consequently, he cannot experience social affections,—such as goodness, equite, and justice. Is the shepherd said to be just to his sheep and his dogs? No: and if he saw fit to shear as much wool from a lamb six months old, as from a ram of two years; or, if he required as much work from a young dog as from an old one,—they would say, not that he was unjust, but that he was foolish. Between man and ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon

... But art not able to keep touch. Mira de lente, as 'tis i' th' adage, Id est, to make a leek a cabbage; 850 Thou'lt be at best but such a bull, Or shear-swine, all cry, and no wool; For what can synods have at all With bear that's analogical? Or what relation has debating 855 Of church-affairs with bear-baiting? A just comparison still is Of things ejusdem generis; And then ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... assembled. The derrick shown in Fig. 232 was a 33-ft. A-frame, with wheels at the bottom of each leg. It had a friction crab hoist driven by an electric motor, both of which were fastened to the derrick frame between the shear legs. ...
— Concrete Construction - Methods and Costs • Halbert P. Gillette

... every plant that drinks the morning dew; Ah, wretched shepherd, what avails thy art, To cure thy lambs, but not to heal thy heart! Let other swains attend the rural care, Feed fairer flocks, or richer fleeces shear: But nigh yon mountain let me tune my lays, Embrace my love, and bind my brows with bays. That flute is mine which Colin's tuneful breath Inspired when living, and bequeath'd in death; 40 He said, 'Alexis, take this pipe—the same That taught the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al

... The very stalls with carrion-heaps that rot In hideous corruption, till men learn With earth to cover them, in pits to hide. For e'en the fells are useless; nor the flesh With water may they purge, or tame with fire, Nor shear the fleeces even, gnawed through and through With foul disease, nor touch the putrid webs; But, had one dared the loathly weeds to try, Red blisters and an unclean sweat o'erran His noisome limbs, till, no long tarriance made, The fiery curse his ...
— The Georgics • Virgil

... the country before, came by every day, and asked an endless series of ridiculous questions. For instance, on seeing a sheep, the sailor would ask what that was. The farmer's boys would tell him it was a sheep. The sailor would ask what it was for. The boys would say they kept sheep to shear them and get the wool. Then presently the sailor would see a cow, and would ask if that was a kind of sheep. The farmer's boys would say no; it was a cow. Then the sailor would ask if they sheared cows to get the wool. ...
— Rollo on the Atlantic • Jacob Abbott

... have liked to shear those sheep; but I hadn't time to get a shed or anything ready—along towards Christmas there was a bit of a boom in the carrying line. Wethers in wool were going as high as thirteen to fifteen shillings at the Homebush yards at Sydney, so I arranged ...
— Joe Wilson and His Mates • Henry Lawson

... be a lamb, but she isn't going to let us shear her, if she can help it," said Phil, looking ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... without dogs, fishers without hooks, and tillers without plow or spade. They show how much development life was capable of in the time before metals."[170] The palometa is a fish which weighs two or three pounds. It has fourteen teeth in each jaw so sharp that the Abipones shear sheep with the jaw.[171] Such cases might be pursued into great detail. They show acute observation, great ingenuity, clever adaptation, and teachableness. The lasso, bola, boomerang, and throw knife, as well as the throw stick, are products of persistent and open-minded experience. The ...
— Folkways - A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals • William Graham Sumner

... up in this kind of talk, because for the last two or three years, since we had begun to shear pretty well, we had always shorn at his shed. He was one of those gentlemen—and he was a gentleman, if ever there was one—that takes a deal of notice of his working hands, particularly if they were young. Jim he took a great fancy to the first moment he saw him. He ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... into the opposite end of the vessel to that upon which the shears are carried, this latter end rises, and the block is raised off the seat on which it was formed, without the chains being put to work to do the actual lifting at all. The vessel, with the block suspended to the shear legs and over the bows, is then ready to be removed to the place where the block has to be laid. A word must here be said about an extremely ingenious mode of dealing with the slack chain, to prevent its becoming fouled, and not paying out properly, when the block ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various

... known, then to divide the times; So many hours must I tend my flock; So many hours must I take my rest; So many hours must I contemplate; So many hours must I sport myself; So many days my ewes have been with young; So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean; So many years ere I shall shear the fleece. So minutes, hours, days, months, and years, Pass'd over to the end they were created, Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave. Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely! Gives not the hawthorn bush ...
— King Henry VI, Third Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]

... tightly than we can ever grasp it. So because He holds us, and not because we hold Him, we shall not be dragged away, by anything outside of our own weak and wavering souls, and all these embattled foes may come against us, they may shear off everything else, they cannot sever Christ from us unless we ourselves throw Him away. 'In this thou shalt conquer.' 'They overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren

... could interfere with his seizing Alsace and Lorraine and invading Flanders. The pretty Louise de Keroualle Duchess of Portsmouth, with her innocent baby face and heart as cold as any reptile's, was the French Delilah chosen to shear the locks of the British Samson. By such means and from such motives a secret treaty was made in February, 1681, by which Louis agreed to pay Charles 2,000,000 livres down, and 500,000 more in each of the next two years, on condition that he should summon no more parliaments ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske

... for the Church, and offer themselves up before God. Let those fools then go who call the institution of the priests spiritual, who yet bear no other office but just to wear the tonsure and to be anointed. If the being shorn and anointed makes a priest, then might I easily shear an ass and anoint him, so that he should ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther

... representative of this beautiful genus. The inner peridium seems to be lacking,—a comfort to Rostafinski! Rare. Our best specimens are from New Jersey, by courtesy of Dr. C. L. Shear. These went to fruit on leaves and branches of Vaccinium. It seems to affect the heather of Europe, moorland, etc. I have also specimens from the herbarium of the lamented Dr. Rex. These are more plasmodiocarpous, ...
— The North American Slime-Moulds • Thomas H. (Thomas Huston) MacBride

... stone. As the Portland quarries were carried to great depths the thickness of bed increased, as it usually does in quarries. With beds from 10 to 20 ft. deep, all of solid and valuable brownstone, it became a matter of importance that some device should be applied which would shear the stone from its bed without loss of stock and without the necessity of making artificial beds at short distances. A system was adopted and used successfully for a number of years which comprised the drilling of deep holes from 10 to 12 ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 832, December 12, 1891 • Various

... by land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow—climbing over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain said she was a "bully" boat, and all she wanted was more "shear" and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... says Trelawney, "two tons of iron ballast to bring her down to her bearings, and then she was very crank in a breeze, though not deficient in beam." Truly Shelley was no seaman. "You will do no good with Shelley," Trelawney told Williams, "until you heave his books and papers overboard, shear the wisps of hair that hang over his eyes, and plunge his arms up to the elbows in a tar bucket." But he said, "I can read and steer at the same time." Read and steer! But indeed it was on this very bay, and almost certainly in the Ariel, ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton

... country from the sea foam to the foothills looked tumbled and new, with the newness of infinite antiquity. The last thunders of creation seemed scarcely to have died away, the last throe scarcely to have ceased, leaving million-ton rock cast on rock and the new, shear-cut cliffs spitting back their first taste ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole

... whether you and your Eve will get justice from him, being English. England and Englishmen find little favour at Avignon just now, and mayhap Philip has already written on behalf of de Noyon. At the best His Holiness will shear you close and keep you waiting while he weighs the wool. No, Red Eve is right: this is a knot soonest severed by the sword. If you should find him, de Noyon could scarce refuse to meet you, for you shall ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard

... but we brought our guns to bear on them, which made them shear off for a time, yet they kept up a fire at us as long as they were in range. The next time the Turks came up, some of their men got on board our ship, and set to work to cut the sails, and do us all kinds of harm. So, as ten of ...
— Robinson Crusoe - In Words of One Syllable • Mary Godolphin

... weave no cloth nowadays. In de winter dey use'er al'ays put woolen on de little chillun to keep em from getting burnt up. Peoples wuz easy to cotch uh fire in dat time. Dey hab plenty uv sheep den en dis jes 'bout de time uv de year dat dey shear de sheep. Al'ays'ud shear de sheep in de month uv May. Dey is make aw kinder nice cloth den. I c'n charge en spin en make any kinder streak yuh wan'. Coase my mudder use'er weave ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... of this fuse involves the curious question of the physical conditions now existing in the discharge of our projectiles by slow burning powder. The forward movement of the shell is now so gradual that the inertia of a pellet is only sufficient to shear a wire of one-tenth the strength of that which might formerly have been sheared by a similar pellet in an old type gun with quick burning powder. Consequently, in many cases, it is found better not to depend on a ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 586, March 26, 1887 • Various

... and customs. In the uncertainty of knowing the exact part of Sainte-Genevieve and Maitre Bordin in this miracle, we have resolved, each of us, to go to Saint-Etienne du Mont and there hear mass, which will be said before the altar of that Holy-Shepherdess who sends us sheep to shear, and also to offer a breakfast to our master Bordin, hoping that he ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... especially wanted was for that charge to succeed—for the grey to succeed. His position here, on the rim of the gully, was an admirable one for witnessing all that the shifting smoke might allow to be witnessed. It was true that a keening minie or one of the monstrous shells might in an instant shear his thread of life, probably would do so; all the probabilities lay that way. But he was cool and courageous, and had kept himself ready to go. An absorbing interest in the field of Gaines's Mill, a passionate desire that Victory should wear grey, dominated ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... the sweep and flash of Jonathan's great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat. Whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris's bowie ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... shear sheep, Child? Well, it was a sight in dem days. Marster would tie a sheep on de scaffold, what he had done built for dat job, and den he would have me set on de sheep's head whilst he cut off de wool. He sont it to de factory to have it carded into bats and us chillun ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... Raghu eyed, He thus unto his brother cried:— "Her dreadful shape, O Lakshman, see, A form to shudder at and flee. The hideous monster's very view Would cleave a timid heart in two. Behold the demon hard to smite, Defended by her magic might. My hand shall stay her course to-day, And shear her nose and ears away. No heart have I her life to take: I spare it for her sex's sake. My will is but—with minished force— To check her in her evil course." While thus he spoke, by rage impelled— Roaring as she came nigh, The fiend her course at Rama held With huge arms tossed on ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... well take two large baskets with tools for digging, and go down to Titcomb's meadow for the poke," suggested Addison. "If you can get the arch-kettle hot while we are gone, we can have the poke put to stew and simmer, so as to be good and strong by day after to-morrow. I suppose you will shear the sheep that day; and by the next morning the lambs will need attending to, ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens

... work ahead of us could be undertaken, it was necessary to shear off an awkward little bulge in the enemy's line, which included the ruined hamlet of Moyenneville. The corps on our right were to take part in an assault two days previous to the commencement of our own advance, so it was considered expedient to accomplish the ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose

... straight. When I got to be a strong lad, I could strike a furrow with the old team across a field as straight as an arrow, and I took pride in throwing my furrows in uniform precision. The mowers had to shear the land close and smooth. The rakers threw their winrows straight, and the men made their hay-cocks of a uniform size, and placed them at equal distances apart. So in the grain field, the stubble ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight

... clean-shorn from the nose to the heels, through the aperture of his separate enclosure. With the same effort apparently he calls out 'Wool!' and darts upon another sheep. Drawing this second victim across his knee, he buries his shear-points in the long wool of its neck. A moment after a lithe and eager boy has gathered up fleece number one, and tossed it into the train-basket, the shearer is halfway down the sheep's side, the wool hanging in one fleece like a great glossy ...
— Shearing in the Riverina, New South Wales • Rolf Boldrewood

... an excellent customer, and the trade, already large, is rapidly increasing. Good tweed, twenty-seven inches wide, may be bought in Donegal for a shilling a yard, and stout twills for one-and-sixpence. The people shear the wool, card it, spin it, dye the yarn made from herbs growing on the sea-shore, on the rocks, in the meadows, and weave it into cloth, which is much in vogue for shooting suits and ladies' dresses. The pieces run from twenty to seventy yards long, and whole families are ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... the habits of wind after it arrives." As to politics: "The people are always worsted in an election." As to altruism: "The long and the short of it is, whoever catches the fool first is entitled to shear him." As to love: "We cannot permit love to run riot; we must build fences around it, as we do around pigs." As to money: "In theory, it is not respectable to be rich. In fact, poverty is a disgrace." As to literature: "Poets are prophets whose prophesying never ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren

... the ranges in the scent of wool and tar; And it takes him back in fancy, half in laughter, half in tears, To a sound of other voices and a thought of other years, When the woolshed rang with bustle from the dawning of the day, And the shear-blades were a-clicking to the cry ...
— Saltbush Bill, J.P., and Other Verses • A. B. Paterson

... a reward amongst the Kafirs for my son. He refused, saying I must drive him home, and then he would give me a pass to come back and look for him. On our arrival at the farm I and my wife again applied to old Isaac Meyer to be allowed to go and see about my son. He refused, saying I must first shear the sheep. I replied that he well knew that I could not shear sheep. I said, 'How can I work when my heart is sore for my son?' Meyer said again that I must wait awhile as the rivers were full. I said how could that matter, seeing that both in coming ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard

... floating castles, the light ships of Agrippa and Octavius could adopt only skirmishing tactics. They rushed in where they could shear away the oar blades of an enemy without getting caught by the great grappling irons swung out from his decks. They kept clear of the heavy stones from the catapults through superior speed and ability to maneuver quickly, but they were unable to strike ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... with me, Charlotte; and I asked her if she would be my wife, and she said she would. Thou takes after her a good deal; she had the very same bright eyes and bonny face, and straight, tall shape thou has to-day. Barf Latrigg was sixty then, turning a bit gray, but able to shear with any man they could put against him. He'll be ninety now; but his father lived till he was more than a hundred, and most of his fore-elders touched the century. ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... that there is a shear or a diagonal tension in the beam, and the diagonal portion of the rod is apparently in a position to take this tension. This is just such a force as the truss-rod in a queen-post truss must take. Is this reinforcing rod equipped to perform this office? The beam is apt to fail in the line, ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey

... bargainers,[121] After him passit in to pairs, All bodin in feir of weir;[122] In jacks, and scryppis, and bonnets of steel, Their legs were chainit to the heel,[123] Frawart was their affeir:[124] Some upon other with brands beft,[125] Some jaggit others to the heft, With knives that sharp could shear. ...
— English Satires • Various

... not so hard; and also the points will break lightly, and men may easily polish them. But some workmen, for malice, will not polish them; to that intent, to make men believe that they may not be polished. But men may assay them in this manner. First shear with them or write with them in sapphires, in crystal or in other precious stones. After that, men take the adamant, that is the shipman's stone, that draweth the needle to him, and men lay the diamond upon the adamant, and lay the ...
— The Travels of Sir John Mandeville • Author Unknown

... sung a song which was said to be composed by a country laird's son, on one of his father's maids, with whom he was in love; and I saw no reason why I might not rhyme as well as he; for, excepting that he could shear sheep and cast peats, his father living in the moorlands, he had no more scholar-craft than myself. Thus with ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb

... demands—unitedly. They will desert the armory; they will spike every cannon on earth; they will scorn the commander; they will never club nor bayonet another striker; and in the legislatures of the world they will shear the fatted parasites from the political and industrial body ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... safety is in entire abstinence. The rule holds in regard to everyday life. Every man has to give up a great many things if he means to succeed in one, and has to be a man of one pursuit if anything worth doing is to be done. Christian men especially have to adopt that principle, and shear off a great deal that is perfectly legitimate, in order that they may keep a reserve of strength for the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren

... the plan suggested by you. Allow me to thank you for the complimentary manner in which you have mentioned my work. Since the notice appeared, we have done a deal of heavy work in this mill; and a plate large enough to shear 11' 0" and 10' 2" and 1/2" thick has been rolled in five minutes. The slab went through the roll 17 times before being rolled to the width and turned round, and 18 times after turning and of the full width; making a total of 35 passes—the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth

... me—matters were entered upon and arranged—Benjie was sent on trial; and though at first he funked and fought refractory, he came, to the astonishment of his master and the old apprentice, in less than no time to cut hair without many visible shear-marks; and, within the first quarter, succeeded, without so much as drawing blood, to unbristle for a wager of his master's, the Saturday night's countenance of Daniel Shoebrush himself, who was as rough ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir

... happiness thrones and sceptres were there would not be so frequent strife about the getting or holding of them; there would be more principalities than princes; for a prince is the pastor of the people. He ought to shear, not to flay his sheep; to take their fleeces, not their the soul of the commonwealth, and ought to cherish it as his own body. Alexander the Great was wont to say, "He hated that gardener that plucked his herbs or flowers ...
— Discoveries and Some Poems • Ben Jonson

... rascal never breathed, wrote W. Russell, LL.D., in "Eccentric Personages." Balsamo had unlimited faith in the gullibility of mankind, and was amply endowed with the gifts which enable their possessor to shear the simpletons of society. ...
— Primitive Psycho-Therapy and Quackery • Robert Means Lawrence

... rather a good farmer, but I haven't met one yet who made a successful speculator. Some of our friends have tried it—and you know where it landed them. I expect those broker and mortgage men must lick their lips when a nice fat woolly farmer comes along. It must be quite delightful to shear him." ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss

... is good cheer, And ere it be passed half a year, I shall thee shear right a lewd frere, And ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley

... should have fine clear weather during the next few days when we should be approaching the land. On his previous southern journey Scott had been prevented from reaching the range of mountains which ran along to our right by a huge chasm. This phenomenon is known to geologists as a shear crack and is formed by the movement of a glacier away from the land which bounds it. In this case a mass of many hundred miles of Barrier has moved away from the mountains, and the disturbance is correspondingly great. Shackleton has ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... bear my eldest born." Then speedily answered Volsung: "No king of the earth might scorn Such noble bidding, Siggeir; and surely will I come To look upon thy glory and the Goths' abundant home. But let two months wear over, for I have many a thing To shape and shear in the Woodland, as befits a people's king: And thou meanwhile here abiding of all my goods shalt be free, And then shall we twain together roof over the glass-green sea With the sides of our golden dragons; and our war-hosts' blended ...
— The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs • William Morris

... ze voman come back, and ce lit me on her lap; and ven ce make my curls come roun her fing-er, like my moder, I tink ce bees good; but zen I hear ze shear cut, and quick I put my hand, and vile ce cut ze curls, ce cut my fing-er dot it bleed, and von curl and von curl ce have cut. Zen much I scream, loud I scream. I call my moder, I call Meme. I say dot I not have my curls ...
— Stories of Childhood • Various

... "What pig will you shear?" demanded Zotique, (looking for an instant, as he turned to shout towards another quarter, "En'oyez ...
— The Young Seigneur - Or, Nation-Making • Wilfrid Chateauclair

... these two together at the ends making what the sailors call a "shears." Take the twelve-foot pole and run it down the ridge inside the tent, and out through the hole in the back. Now raise the ridge pole with one end stuck in the ground and the front end resting on the two shear poles and tie all three of them together. At the end of each seam along the hem you must work in a little eyelet hole for a short piece of twine to tie to the tent pegs. Stretch out the back triangle, pegging ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... commission, sir?" said Murray to me, snapping the words out as though he would have them shear my head off. ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... great were being laid; by aid of these words may detect links which bind its present to its remotest past; for of lands as of persons it may be said, 'the child is father of the man,' 'Shire' is connected with 'shear,' 'share,' and is properly a portion 'shered' or 'shorn' off. [Footnote: It must be confessed that there are insuperable difficulties in the way of connecting Anglo-Saxon scir with the verb sceron, to shear, and of explaining it as equivalent to 'shorn off.' The derivation of 'shire' ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench

... on Shagpat awoke in Shibli Bagarag fierce desire to shear him, and it was scarce in his power to restrain himself from flying at the clothier, he saying, 'What obstacle now? what protecteth him? Nay, why not trust to the old woman? Said she not I should ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... death-wounds!" In men of such a temper, strong with the strength of manhood and full of the vigour and the love of life, the sense of its shortness and of the mystery of it all woke chords of a pathetic poetry. "Soon will it be," ran the warning rime, "that sickness or sword-blade shear thy strength from thee, or the fire ring thee, or the flood whelm thee, or the sword grip thee, or arrow hit thee, or age o'ertake thee, and thine eye's brightness sink down in darkness." Strong as he might be, man struggled in vain with the doom that encompassed him, that girded his life with ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green

... of the sort,' said I. My father did but teach me to strike an honest downright blow. This sword can shear through a square inch ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle

... it was impossible to find laborers enough to till the soil and shear the sheep. Those who were free now demanded higher wages, while the villeins, or serfs (S113), and slaves left their masters and roamed about the country asking for pay for ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery

... gather," said Charles, waving his hands. "The more they gather to the fold, the more we'll shear." He laughed as if pleased with the prospect, and ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major

... for us; go into the field and cut the corn that we may have some bread." "Yes, dear Hans, I will do that." After Hans had gone away, she cooked herself some good broth and took it into the field with her. When she came to the field she said to herself, "What shall I do; shall I shear first, or shall I eat first? Oh, I will eat first." Then she emptied her basin of broth, and when she was fully satisfied, she once more said, "What shall I do? Shall I shear first, or shall I sleep first? I will sleep first." Then she lay down among the corn and fell asleep. Hans had been at ...
— Household Tales by Brothers Grimm • Grimm Brothers

... pause, Duc de Richelieu, famous blackguard man, gallops up to the Marechal, gallops rapidly from Marechal to King; suggesting, 'were cannon brought AHEAD of this close deep Column, might not they shear it into beautiful destruction; and then a general charge be made?' So counselled Richelieu: it is said, the Jacobite Irishman, Count Lally of the Irish Brigade, was prime author of this notion,—a man of tragic ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... groan, and volumes heap, Our dullness we no more betray; To know the stars, or shear a sheep— To live on air, or polo play; The trick is ours, or we may stray Beneath the seas, with science cooks, And sprint by some reflected ray The easy road of "How ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume III. (of X.) • Various

... sky-sign on Summit Rock, the small cluster of boulders on top of the cliff. His chief difficulty was to hoist into place the tall poles he needed, and for this purpose he had to again visit Palm-tree Rock in order to secure the pulley. By exercising much ingenuity in devising shear-legs, he at last succeeded in lifting the masts into their allotted receptacles, where they were firmly secured. Finally he was able to swing into air, high above the tops of the neighboring trees, the loftiest of which he felled in order to clear the view on all sides, ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy

... marketed in the Orient, America or Europe, thousands of pounds of wool and camel hair could be exported. Of course both of these articles are produced at the present time, but only in limited quantities. In the region where we spent the summer, the Mongols sometimes do not shear their sheep or camels but gather the wool from the ground when it has dropped off in the natural process of shedding. Probably half of it is lost, and the remainder is full of dirt and grass which detracts greatly from its value. Moreover, when it is shipped ...
— Across Mongolian Plains - A Naturalist's Account of China's 'Great Northwest' • Roy Chapman Andrews

... imagine that the shortening in of shoots recommended consists of cutting the young sprays evenly all round the trees as one would shear a hedge. It more nearly resembles the pruning of the vine; for the peach, like the vine, bears its fruit only on the young wood of the previous summer's growth. The aim should be to have this young bearing wood distributed evenly over the tree, as should be true of ...
— The Home Acre • E. P. Roe

... was shearing-time at the Myall Lake, And there rose the sound thro' the livelong day Of the constant clash that the shear-blades make When the fastest shearers are making play, But there wasn't a man in the shearers' lines That could shear a sheep with ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... the novelty are dead, And you've seen a load of wounded once or twice, Or you've watched your old mate dying — with the vultures overhead, Well, you wonder if the war is worth the price. And down along Monaro now they're starting out to shear, I can picture the excitement and the row; But they'll miss me on the Lachlan when they call the roll this year, For we're going on a long ...
— Rio Grande's Last Race and Other Verses • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson

... (if need be) the body of a lord to its grave. Item, women shall not do their textile works, nor cut out clothes, nor stitch them together with the needle, nor card wool, nor beat hemp, nor wash clothes in public, nor shear sheep: so that there may be rest on the Lord's day. But let them come together from all sides to Mass in the Church and praise God for all the good things He did for us on ...
— Medieval People • Eileen Edna Power

... Well-ground my polished sword is and thin and keen of edge And trenchant, eke, for smiting and long my steel-barbed spear. So fell and fierce my stroke is, if on a mountain high It lit, though all of granite, right through its midst 'twould shear. Nor troops have I nor henchmen nor one to lend me aid Save God, to whom, my Maker, my voice in praise I rear. 'Tis He who pardoneth errors alike to slave and free; On Him is my reliance in good and ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne

... but that now it was a sport of the Dusky Men to set a match between their thralls to fight it out with sword and buckler or otherwise; and the vanquished man, if he were not sore hurt, they would scourge, or shear some member from him, or even slay him outright, if the match between the owners were so made. And many other sad and grievous tales he told to Face-of-god, more than need be told again; so that the War-leader went along sorry ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris

... to shear off, cleave, hew to pieces: pres. sg. onne heoru bunden ... swn ofer helme andweard scire (hews off the ...
— Beowulf • James A. Harrison and Robert Sharp, eds.

... the tailor no caprices: Enjoin upon him, as his head is dear, To most exactly measure, sew and shear, So that ...
— Faust • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

... chastisement for apostasy; but a remnant of them shall return. They had not utterly forgotten God, therefore a part of the nation shall be rescued from captivity. So full of hope is Isaiah that the nation shall not utterly be destroyed, that he names his son Shear-jashub,—"a remnant shall return." This is his watchword. Certain is it that the Lord will have mercy on Jacob whom he hath chosen; his promises will not fail. Judah shall be chastised; but a part of Judah shall return to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord

... in its home estate twenty-five hundred acres of land, and owns besides about two thousand acres in the same state, and thirty thousand acres in Kentucky. Its chief industry is farming, and the families keep a large number of sheep and cattle. They shear wool enough to supply all their own needs in cloth and flannel, but have these woven by an outside mill; they raise large crops of broom-corn and sweet corn: the first they make into brooms, and the other they put up dry in barrels for sale; they put up fruits ...
— The Communistic Societies of the United States • Charles Nordhoff

... planting anew. Then look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will nibble off the earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go; and again, when the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice of it, and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting erect like a squirrel. But above all harvest as early as possible, if you would escape frosts and have a fair and salable crop; you may save much loss ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... you keep account of them, my Lord, that you may pay me their value when we come to settle our score, seeing that I never gave you leave to shear my sheep ...
— The Lady Of Blossholme • H. Rider Haggard

... inches wide, of hand-worked embroidery of the strangest, old-world-looking patterns and the most brilliant colors. These things are manufactured by the peasantry of the hill-country in the neighborhood of San Germano, who grow, shear, spin, weave, dye and embroider the wool themselves. And being barbarously unsophisticated by any adulteration of cotton, and in no wise stinted in the quantity of material, they are wonderfully strong and enduring. The most remarkable ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various

... probably out on a hunting excursion, whilst they, as lords of creation, waited quietly at their club till dinner should be announced. They got very little from me, as I had no surplus food to spare. Nicholls told me they had some tin billies and shear-blades in the camp, and I noticed that one of the first batch we saw had a small piece of coarse cloth on; another had a piece of horse's girth webbing. On questioning the most civilised, and inquiring about ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles

... through and through, Piercing with flawless shaft what heart soe'er Of all men living is most dear to Her. Yea, and to thee, for this sore travail's sake, Honours most high in Trozen will I make; For yokeless maids before their bridal night Shall shear for thee their tresses; and a rite Of honouring tears be thine in ceaseless store; And virgin's thoughts in music evermore Turn toward thee, and praise thee in the Song Of Phaedra's far-famed love and thy great wrong. O seed ...
— Hippolytus/The Bacchae • Euripides

... forfeit everything, take into consideration nothing but our right. O infatuated ministers! Like a silly man, full of his prerogative over the beasts of the field, who says, there is wool on the back of a wolf, and therefore he must be sheared. What! shear a wolf? Yes. But have you considered the trouble? Oh, I have considered nothing but my right. A wolf is an animal that has wool; all animals that have wool are to be sheared; and therefore I will shear ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... mind, sure, if on'y ye look to the grass at your feet, For 'tis thick wid the tussocks of heather, an' blossoms and herbs that smell sweet If ye tread thim; an' maybe the white o' the bog-cotton waves in the win', Like the wool ye might shear off a night-moth, an' set an ould fairy to spin; Or wee frauns, each wan stuck 'twixt two leaves on a grand little stem of its own, Lettin' on 'twas a plum on ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... Samson straining his manhood for strength to shore up a resolution, and here was a sharpening of scissors to shear him well! ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... youngster said. 'I shall come to an understanding with him. We will deposit the will at the Tribunal, after showing it to the President.' So at that, I told him to ask M. Villemot to come here as soon as he could.—Be easy, my dear sir, there are those that will take care of you. They shall not shear the fleece off your back. You will have some one that has beak and claws. M. Villemot will give them a piece of his mind. I have put myself in a passion once already with that abominable hussy, La Cibot, a porter's wife that sets ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac

... sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust"; and Mr. Bluphocks shows himself amusingly familiar with Bible facts and phrases. Mr. Sludge, "the Medium," thinks the Bible says the stars are "set for signs when we should shear sheep, sow corn, prune trees," and describes the skeptic in the magic circle of spiritual "investigators" as the "guest without the wedding-garb, the doubting Thomas." Some one has taken the trouble to count five hundred Biblical phrases or allusions in "The ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee

... opinions—the Bible, the Fathers, the mediaeval commentators, the Canon Law and the glosses upon it—it was important to a candidate to be able to handle a question properly, to divide it up into its different parts by means of distinctions, to shear off side issues, to examine the various facets which it presented when approached from different points of view; and all this without hesitation, ...
— The Age of Erasmus - Lectures Delivered in the Universities of Oxford and London • P. S. Allen

... Roy, speaking to himself, but at the musician, "for one of your eyes turned this way; but you won't speak till you've got to the end of that bit of noise. Oh, how I should like to shear off those long greasy curls! They make you look worse even than you do when they're all twisted up in pieces of paper. It doesn't suit your round, fat face. You don't look a bit like a cavalier, Master P.P.; but I suppose you're a very good sort of fellow, or else father would ...
— The Young Castellan - A Tale of the English Civil War • George Manville Fenn

... turret-clock in the tower that had stood at 2 p.m. since the memory of man. I loved to think, each time the hour sounded, that those who heard its deep chime would remember me. But the flocks were my main care. The sheep that I tended and helped to shear, and the lamb that I hooked out of the great marsh, and the three venerable ewes that I nursed through a mysterious sort of murrain which puzzled all the neighborhood,—are they not written in thy loving ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... gone to St. Jo by land, for she was walking most of the time, anyhow—climbing over reefs and clambering over snags patiently and laboriously all day long. The captain said she was a "bully" boat, and all she wanted was some "shear" and a bigger wheel. I thought she wanted a pair of stilts, but I had the deep sagacity not to ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... set to work with his shears, with Sam to help him. He did not shear so many sheep as the contract shearers, but he sheared well, leaving none of the bottom wool, and his employer was perfectly satisfied. He got through two score the first day; two and a half the next; and three the next. He observed ...
— Taking Tales - Instructive and Entertaining Reading • W.H.G. Kingston

... on Oblivion's stream; Such notes as from the Breton tongue Marie translated, Blondel sung? O! born Time's ravage to repair, And make the dying muse thy care; Who, when his scythe her hoary foe Was poising for the final blow, The weapon from his hand could wring, And break his glass, and shear his wing, And bid, reviving in his strain, The gentle poet live again; Thou, who canst give to lightest lay An unpedantic moral gay, Nor less the dullest theme bid flit On wings of unexpected wit; In letters as in life approved, Example honoured and beloved ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... their thoughts to employ, Take care to provide them a life full of joy; But if to some profit and use thou wouldst bend them, Take care to shear them, and then ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe

... men: "He works his siggle like a man though."—"A stout boy anyway; give him practice and he'd shear many a man in bed." Then the women: "She's looking as bright as a pewter pot, and she's all so pretty as the Govenar's daughter too."—"Got a good heart, though. Only last week she had word of Pete, and look at the scarlet perricut." Finally both men and women: "Lave ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... back into his human negativity; he is nothing more than an employee paid for his ministration. And this ministration is not exalted in him by an extraordinary and visible renunciation, by perpetual celibacy, by continence promised and kept; he is married,[5333] father of a family, needy, obliged to shear his flock to support himself and those belonging to him, and therefore is of little consideration; he is without moral ascendancy; he is not the pastor who is obeyed, but the official who is made ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... to his antagonists, man or beast, from the cutting power of his fearful snap. His molar teeth shear through flesh and small bones like the gash of a butcher's cleaver; and his wide gape and lightning-quick movements render him a very dangerous antagonist. The bite of a wolf is the most dangerous to man of any animal bite to ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday

... Boilers, constructive details of: riveting and caulking of land boilers, proving of; seams payed with mixture of whiting and linseed oil; setting of wagon boilers; riveting of marine boilers; precautions respecting angle iron; how to punch the rivet holes and shear edges of plates; setting of marine boilers in wooden vessels; mastic cement for setting marine boilers; composition of mastic cement; best length of furnace; configuration of furnace bars; advantages and construction of furnace bridges; ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne

... fatal interests which consigned Etienne to the priesthood returned to her mind, and she kissed the hair that the scissors of the Church were to shear, leaving her tears upon them. Still, in spite of the unjust compact she had made with the duke, she could not see Etienne in her visions of the future as priest or cardinal; and the absolute forgetfulness of the father as to his first-born, enabled her to postpone the moment of putting ...
— The Hated Son • Honore de Balzac

... he cried. "Why, ye be well met; nay, gossip, ye be right well met, upon the rood! And is that the Good Hope? Ay, I would know her among ten thousand!—a sweet shear, a sweet boat! But marry, come up, my gossip, will ye drink? I have come into mine estate, which doubtless ye remember to have heard on. I am now rich; I have left to sail upon the sea; I do sail now, for the most part, upon spiced ale. Come, fellow; thy hand upon 't! Come, drink ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... "Never shear their sheep till they are dead!" she exclaimed when that fact had been gestured into her understanding. "Absurd! There's another specimen of masculine stupidity. I'll warrant you, if the women had the management ...
— Overland • John William De Forest

... ill-judged, and will endanger greatly the volume. But we do object to the hypocritical cant about the licentiousness of Pope's fine touches, from the person who wrote the above words in italics. Omissions there must have been—but they sadly shear the tale of its vigour, and indeed leave it not very intelligible to readers who know not the original. The variations are most unhappy—miserable indeed; and by putting the miller's daughter to lie in a closet at the end of a passage, this moral modernizer has killed Chaucer. In ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various

... was the wisdom of him who resolved to shear the wolf. What, shear a wolf! Have you considered the resistance, the difficulty, the danger of the attempt? No, says the madman, I have considered nothing but the right. Man has a right of dominion over the beasts of the forest; and therefore I ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick

... match for him, boldly calls for a free fight and no favor, while the Protectionist was the man who, seeing himself overmatched, called for the police. The Free Trader held that the natural, God-given right of the capitalist to shear the people anywhere he found them was superior to considerations of race, nationality, or boundary lines. The Protectionist, on the contrary, maintained the patriotic right of the capitalist to the exclusive shearing of his own fellow-countrymen without ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy

... Thursday afternoon. It will be just a formal call—mutual introductions—and, later, an invitation from Mrs. Ames to Mrs. Hawley-Crowles. Meantime, I want you to get Mrs. Hawley-Crowles involved in a financial way, and shear her of every ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... rang rung Rise rose risen Rive rived riven Run ran run Saw sawed sawn, R. Say said said See saw seen Seek sought sought Sell sold sold Send sent sent Set set set Shake shook shaken Shape shaped shaped, shapen Shave shaved shaven, R. Shear sheared shorn Shed shed shed Shine shone, R. shone, R. Show showed shown Shoe shod shod Shoot shot shot Shrink shrunk shrunk Shred shred shred Shut shut shut Sing sung, sang[9] sung Sink sunk, sank[9] sunk Sit sat set Slay slew slain ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham

... arranged—Benjie was sent on trial; and though at first he funked and fought refractory, he came, to the astonishment of his master and the old apprentice, in less than no time to cut hair without many visible shear- marks; and, within the first quarter, succeeded, without so much as drawing blood, to unbristle, for a wager of his master's, the Saturday night's countenance of Daniel Shoebrush himself, who was as ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir

... because there were men with another kind of strength that were hurting the tribe- -men who had the strength of the land, like Three-Legs; who had the strength of the fish-trap, like Little-Belly; who had the strength of all the goat-meat, like Pig-Jaw. The thing to do, Split-Nose said, was to shear these men of their evil strength; to make them go to work, all of them, and to let no man eat who ...
— The Strength of the Strong • Jack London

... trees exist there. Well, the wealthy Baron of Shapinshay conquers nature thus; he has dug round the castle vast hollow gardens (not a continuous moat) in which flourishes a profusion of flowers and shrubs and even trees,—till arboriculture is cut shear off, if it dares to look over the mounds. I put ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... one for his money, did not confiscate (at this time) any one's property, nor collect any funds by abuses. Indeed, when Aemilius Rectus once sent him from Egypt, of which he was governor, more money than was required, he sent him a message, saying: "To shear my sheep and not to shave them to the skin is what ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol. 4 • Cassius Dio

... we should never on earth have suspected him of being so capable. But be it requested that he repair a sewing machine, a bicycle or a watch; sharpen a pair of scissors, put in a pane of glass, make over mattresses, shear a horse, a dog or a human, paint a sign, cover an umbrella, kill a pig or treat a sprain, Laigut never hesitates, Laigut is always found competent. Add to this his commerce in seeds and herbs, his talent for destroying snakes and trapping moles, the fact that he is municipal bell ringer and ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard

... the eve of Yule, Will forge three anchors rare; The hemp thou shalt pull, thou shalt shear the wool, And the maidens will ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald

... dimpled chin, That never has known the barber's shear, All your wish is woman to win, This is the way that boys begin,— Wait till you come ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... yet!" quoth Charlie Wood, "O tarry, master mine! It's ill to shear a yearling hog, Or twist the ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... matter was cleared up. To-day we know that the peculiar behaviour of the hybrid Hieraciums is due to the fact that they normally produce seed by a peculiar process of parthenogenesis. It is possible to take an unopened flower and to shear off with a {134} razor all the male organs together with the stigmata through which the pollen reaches the ovules. The flower, nevertheless, sets perfectly good seed. But the cells from which the seeds develop are ...
— Mendelism - Third Edition • Reginald Crundall Punnett

... violence," said Glenn. "I've been hugging sheep. That is, when I shear a sheep I have ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... worth? and whether a claim, without the power of enforcing it, was not nugatory in the copyhold of rival states? He compared the reasonings of ministers to a man, who, full of his prerogative of dominion over a few beasts of the field, should assert his right to shear a wolf, because it had wool upon its back, without considering whether he had the power of using the shears, or whether the animal would submit to the operation of shearing. He remarked:—"Are we yet to be told of the rights for ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... Maloney rang the cow-bell again, and Dave and "Podgy," the pet sheep, rode out on Nugget. Podgy sat with hind-legs astride the horse and his head leaning back against Dave's chest. Dave (standing up) bent over him with a pair of shears in his hand. He was to shear Podgy as ...
— On Our Selection • Steele Rudd

... and thy sister, I follow thee to the land of Hellas. Be ready to stand by me to the end, abandon me not left forlorn of thee when thou dost visit the kings. But only save me; let justice and right, to which we have both agreed, stand firm; or else do thou at once shear through this neck with the sword, that I may gain the guerdon due to my mad passion. Poor wretch! if the king, to whom you both commit your cruel covenant, doom me to belong to my brother. How shall I come to my father's sight? Will it be with a good name? What ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... creatures, with shaggy, clumsy legs, hoofs as big as dinner plates, and fetlocks six inches long. Later we had to shear their legs, because the long hair loaded up so badly with snow. Several of them were light red in color, and had crinkly manes and tails; and three or four weighed as much as sixteen hundred pounds apiece. Each horse had its ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens

... which ne'er again Will need the barber's shear, Wilt thou present in Charles his train Some long-locked Cavalier? A sober Don for all to see Who once didst walk abroad, Wilt now an Ancient Briton be And painted blue ...
— The Casual Ward - academic and other oddments • A. D. Godley

... when she gets the chance—on her clothes and finery. You must know that. Your sex as a class doesn't regard it as disreputable in the least. At the worst, it is a peccadillo, not a crime. The law was passed to enable our native tailors to shear the well-to-do public." ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant

... thorowe the woodes went, on every syde shear; Greahondes thorowe the grevis glent, for to ...
— Ballads of Scottish Tradition and Romance - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Third Series • Various

... of yea-say that arose at that word; and when it was stilled, a grey-head stood up and said: "King Christopher, and thou, our leader, whom we shall henceforth call Earl, it is now meet that we shear up the war-arrow, and send it forth to whithersoever we deem our friends dwell, and that this be done at once here in this Mote, and that the hosting be after three nights' frist in the plain of Hazeldale, which all ye know is twelve miles nigher ...
— Child Christopher • William Morris

... laughed the baron, "the golden fleece! splendidly said! In truth, we shear the sheep, or, if you like, the shepherds, for you cannot imagine what a rheumatism of thought in this matter prevails throughout the country. No man knows the value of what he has; no man knows what he possesses. There is no conception of art; no aesthetic knowledge. ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)

... when the shearen time do come, Then we do work vrom dawn till dark; Where zome do shear the sheep, and zome Do mark their ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... darling of the year! Ilk cowslip cup shall kep a tear: [catch] Thou, Simmer, while each corny spear Shoots up its head, Thy gay green flow'ry tresses shear For him that's dead! ...
— Robert Burns - How To Know Him • William Allan Neilson

... guess they don't stop for a storm like this if they's any money to be made by sending her through. Many's the night I've broke all night on top of the old wooden cars, when the wind was sharp enough to shear the hair off a cast-iron mule—woo-o-o! There's where you need grit, old man," he ended, ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... was a change. Look, he rushed forward, wielding the great blade in both hands. The stroke lit upon Lozelle's shield and seemed to shear it in two, for in that stillness all could hear the clang of its upper half as it fell upon the stones. Beneath the weight of it he staggered, sank to his knee, gained his feet again, and in his turn gave back. Yes, now it was Lozelle who rocked and reeled. Ay, by St. Chad! Lozelle who went ...
— The Brethren • H. Rider Haggard

... insisted on driving and nursed the team as best I could, giving them plenty of time on the uphill grade, but sending them along at a furious pate on level ground and down hill. From The Dalles to Shear's bridge on the Deschutes we made a record run. There we changed horses, the generous owner returning not a word when our urgent errand was told. Mrs. Shear also kindly gave us some food to eat on the road. By 1 o'clock we were at Bakeoven, 45 miles from The Dalles. Here we again changed horses, ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson

... itself a proof of his success; and she was for him a living work of art, able to live so because of the abundance of his strength. In her, that strength passed into ornament and became beautiful; she was a friendly, faithful Delilah to his Samson, a Delilah who did not shear his locks. And so he came to think of art itself as being in its nature feminine if not effeminate, as a luxury and ornament of life, as everything, in fact, except a means of expression ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock

... they cut themselves loose from all former connection with the bishops: "Since you"—so they say—"in spite of all prayers and invitations have staid away from the Disputation, and since you indeed shear the poor sheep, but have not pastured them, we deprive you of your selfish trade, and neither we, nor they who come after us, wish to be bound in any way to you or your successors." All deacons and pastors are released from their oath to them, and required henceforth to give it to the ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger

... certain insects of sharp stings cut off all flowers and fruits of the trees on which they sit, the king should, after having inspired confidence in his foe by honours and salutations and gifts, turn against him and shear him of everything. Without piercing the very vitals of others, without accomplishing many stern deeds, without slaughtering living creatures after the manner of the fisherman, one cannot acquire great prosperity. There is no separate species of creatures called foes ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... form of cross section of girders varies very much, it is virtually an I section (fig. 15). The function of the flanges is to resist a horizontal tension and compression distributed practically uniformly on their cross sections. The web resists forces equivalent [v.04 p.0539] to a shear on vertical and horizontal planes. The inclined tensions and compressions in the bars of a braced web are equivalent to this shear. The horizontal stresses in the flanges are greatest at the centre of a span. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various



Words linked to "Shear" :   shearer, elasticity of shear, cut back, fleece, prune, dress, shearing, deformation, crop, edge tool, clip, cut



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