▪ I. shearing, vbl. n.
(ˈʃɪərɪŋ)
[f. shear v. + -ing1.]
1. The action or an act of cutting, clipping, or shaving with shears or some other sharp instrument.
| c 1315 Shoreham i. 1416 Þat hys in holy cherche y-cleped wel Þe furste scherynge Of clerke. a 1400–50 Wars Alex. 2624 Sharpe schudering of schote, schering [Dubl. MS. sheryng] of mailes. 1490 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot. I. 138 Item, for the schereing of xxxiij elne j quartar of clayth. 1523–34 Fitzherb. Husb. §51 Beware, that thou put not to many shepe in a penne at one tyme..at the sheryng. 1611 Shakes. Wint. T. iv. iv. 77 Grace, and Remembrance be to you both, And welcome to our Shearing. 1704 Pope Summer 64 When swains from shearing seek their nightly bow'rs. 1728 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Cloth, The Sheerman takes it, and gives it its first cut, or sheering. 1778 [W. H. Marshall] Minutes Agric., Observ. 92 The Cutting of Wheat is termed Shearing. 1848 J. R. Lowell Poet. Works (1896) 136/2 Your goddess of freedom, a tight, buxom girl..who can sing at a husking or romp at shearing. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., Shearing,..cutting up steel for the crucible. 1890 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Col. Reformer (1891) 122 With spring came all the bustle of washing and shearing. 1891 Morris Poems by Way (1896) 191 It was Goldilocks woke up in the morn At the first of the shearing of the corn. 1901 M. Franklin My Brilliant Career xvi. 136, I was looking forward to the shearing. |
† 2. Cleavage, parting, division.
Obs.| c 1400 Sc. Trojan War i. 502 This hede and taill ar for to say A myddle scheryng in þe way Of a cercle þat turnys in hevene. |
3. Something which is cut off with shears or some other sharp implement. Now only
pl.| 1536 Test. Ebor. (Surtees) VI. 56 To..my shepherde fyve sheipe sheringes. 1558 Warde tr. Alexis' Secr. (1568) 90 A pounde of the shearinge of Scarlet. 1673 F. Kirkman Unlucky Cit. 287 It was like the shearing of the Hogs, all Bristles. 1712 Addison Spect. No. 295 ¶10 He would..have presented her once in three Years with the Sheerings of his Sheep for her Under-Petticoats. 1799 G. Smith Laboratory I. 145 Put the shearings of scarlet cloth upon the coals. 1875 Fortnum Maiolica vi. 55 A certain quantity of the shearings of fine woollen cloth. |
4. dial. A designation for a sheep after the first shearing, a shearling.
| 1641 Best Farm. Bks. (Surtees) 2 After they are once shorne, they are called gimmer shearinges. 1781 Hutton Tour to Caves (ed. 2) 95 Shearing, a sheep a year old, or once shorn. 1786 Culley Live Stock (1807) Introd. p. xviii, Then they take the name of shearing, shearling, shear-hog. |
5. Mining. (See
quots.)
| 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., Shearing,..the making of vertical cuts at the ends of a portion of an undercut seam of coal. 1881 Raymond Mining Gloss., Shearing. 1. The vertical side-cutting which, together with holing or horizontal undercutting, constitutes the attack upon a face of coal. |
6. Physics, etc. See
shear v. 9.
| 1850 E. Clark Britannia & Conway Bridges I. 389 Under these circumstances failure takes place solely from the vertical shearing of the material in a transverse direction. 1858 Rankine Man. Appl. Mechanics §279. 299 The resistance of timber to shearing is in each case that which acts between contiguous layers of fibres. 1869 Lond. etc. Philos. Jrnl. XXXVIII. 71 On the Fracture of Brittle and Viscous Solids by ‘Shearing’. By Sir William Thomson, F.R.S. 1876 F. Jenkin Bridges §3 in Encycl. Brit. IV. 285/2 There are three kinds of stress, due to tension, compression, and shearing. 1882 Geikie Text-bk. Geol. iii. i. iv. §4 (1903) 428 The planes of sedimentation, or those of cleavage or shearing where these have been developed, being naturally those along which water passes most easily. |
7. attrib. and
Comb., as
shearing-day,
shearing-feast,
shearing-rent,
shearing-season,
shearing-time;
shearing-floor,
shearing-house,
shearing paddock,
shearing-shed;
esp. in names of tools, weapons, etc. used in the process of shearing, as
shearing-board,
shearing-knife,
shearing-machine,
† shearing-shaft,
† shearing-shears,
† shearing-sword,
shearing-table.
| 1661 Petty in T. Birch Hist. Roy. Soc. (1756) I. 64 The lower chap [of the sheer] is kept close down to the *sheering⁓board with weights of lead. 1890 ‘R. Boldrewood’ Col. Reformer xvii, The shearing board would be deserted. |
| 1860 Indenture 30 July, *Shearing days fines or *shearing rents and other dues. |
| 1596 Spenser Astrophel 32 Emongst the shepheards in their *shearingfeast. 1829 Scott Anne of G. vi, Thou shalt have a necklace of jet at next shearing-feast. |
| 1863 R. Henning Let. 26 Nov. (1966) 146 The *shearing floor is made to accommodate twelve shearers. a 1914 A. B. Paterson in Penguin Bk. Austral. Ballads (1964) 178 Round the shearing-floor the listening shearers gape. |
| 1614 W. Browne Sheph. Pipe iii. D 4, Or consuming fire Brent his *shearing-house. 1806 R. Cumberland Mem. (1807) II. 145 A very large and commodious shearing-house. |
| 1844 W. Barnes Poems Rur. Life Gloss., *Shearen-knife, a thatcher's tool for shearing the roof. |
| 1834–6 P. Barlow Manuf. §1025 in Encycl. Metrop. (1845) VIII. 729 *Shearing or cropping machines have now very commonly superseded the hand shearing. 1850 E. Clark Britannia & Conway Bridges II. 665 A steam-engine, with the necessary shafting, for driving the punching and shearing machines. 1977 Yin Ming United & Equal 70 The commune has gradually mechanized its operations. It now has over 80 items of mechanized equipment—trucks, tractors, diesel engines, fodder-processors, mowers and shearing machines. |
| 1933 L. G. D. Acland in Press (Christchurch, N.Z.) 25 Nov., *Shearing paddock, handy paddock to hold sheep during shearing. |
| 1883 Century Mag. Oct. 817/1 Organized shearing bands, with captains, that go from ranch to ranch in the *shearing season. |
| 1581 A. Hall Iliad v. 87 Iuno..was wounded sore..By triple headed *sheering shafte. |
| 1573 Tusser Husb. (1878) 36 *Sharing sheares readie for sheepe to be shorne. |
| 1857 H. W. Harper Let. 1 Sept. in Lett. from N.Z. (1914) 19 He took me to his *shearing shed. 1910 N. Munro Fancy Farm xiii. 126 The dipping-fold or the shearing-shed. |
| 1707 Sir. W. Hope New Method Fencing vii. 200 A good light *Sheering-Sword. |
| 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., *Shearing-table, a bench for holding sheep while being sheared. |
| c 1520 Nisbet N.T. Matt. xiii. 30 Suffir ye thaim bathe to grow into *schering-tyme. 1777 Brand Pop. Antiq. 284. 1862 Rep. Comm. Patents 1861: Agric. (U.S.) 137 Shearing time..is the month of June. 1953 O. E. Middleton in C. K. Stead N.Z. Short Stories (1966) 188 Shearing-time was always a worry for Charlie. |
8. a. Special comb.:
shearing-darg Sc., a day's-work performed by a shearer;
† shearing-hook = shear-hook;
† shearing-ram, a ram past its first shearing and therefore about one year old.
| 1550 in Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot. 1593, 794/2 Lie *scheringdargis. |
| c 1385 Chaucer L.G.W. 641 (Fairf.) In gooth the grapenel so ful of crokes Amonge the ropes and the *sheryng hokes. 1586 Shuttleworths' Acc. (Chetham Soc.) 32 Makynge of towe sherynge houkes x{supd}. |
| 1797 Sporting Mag. X. 123 The use of some of his *shearing rams..for fifty guineas each. |
b. in scientific terms (see sense 6 and
shear v. 9):
shearing plane Geol. = shear-plane (
shear n.2 7);
shearing strain, a strain of the nature of a shear (
shear n.2 6 a);
shearing strength, power of resistance to shearing;
shearing stress, a stress tending to produce or resist a shear.
| 1889 O. Fisher Physics Earth's Crust xx. (ed. 2) 263 The throw, that in faulting occurs along a single *shearing plane, the ‘fault-’ or ‘thrust-plane’. |
| 1850 E. Clark Britannia & Conway Bridges II. 517 The strain called by Mr. Stephenson ‘the *shearing strain’, which rendered thick plates necessary at the extremities of the tubes. 1882 Minchin Unipl. Kinematics 134 A shearing strain. |
| 1869 E. J. Reed Shipbuilding xvii. 333 The *shearing strengths of rivets are proportional to the sectional Areas. 1869 Rankine Mach. & Millwork 497 The ultimate shearing strength..is..equal, or nearly equal, to the tenacity. |
| Ibid. 496 Every *shearing stress is equivalent to a pair of direct stresses of the same intensity, one tensile and the other compressive, exerted in directions making angles of 45° with the shearing stress. 1910 Love in Encycl. Brit. IX. 143/1 A state of stress in which there is purely tangential traction on a plane, and no normal traction on any perpendicular plane, is described as a state of ‘shearing stress’. |
▪ II. shearing, ppl. a. (
ˈʃɪərɪŋ)
[f. shear v. + -ing2.] That shears, in various senses of the verb.
| 1375 Barbour Bruce xvi. 455 Thai seruit thame in sa gret wayne With scherand swerdis and with knyvis. a 1586 Montgomerie Misc. Poems xxiii. 18 The sheirand shaft soon slippit to my hairt. 1599 Sandys Europæ Spec. (1632) 113 As a sheering wind it kills all in the bud. 1885–94 R. Bridges Eros & Psyche Nov. 24 Like twin sharks..showing 'bove the water blue Their shearing fins. |