shear
shear [shear shears sheared shearing shorn] BrE [ʃɪə(r)] NAmE [ʃɪr] verb (sheared, shornBrE [ʃɔːn] ; NAmE [ʃɔːrn] or sheared)
1. transitive ~ sth to cut the wool off a sheep
•It was time for the sheep to be shorn.
•sheep shearing
2. transitive ~ sth (formal)to cut off sb's hair
•shorn hair
3. intransitive, transitive ~ (sth) (off) (technical) (especially of metal)to break under pressure; to cut through sth and make it break
•The bolts holding the wheel in place sheared off.
Derived: ↑shorn of something
Verb forms: 
Word Origin:
Old English sceran (originally in the sense ‘cut through with a weapon’), of Germanic origin; related to Dutch and German scheren, from a base meaning ‘divide, shear, shave’.
Example Bank:
•The prisoners' hair was shorn.
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