different between sheer vs ultra

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /????/
• (US) IPA^(key): /???/
• Rhymes: -??(?)
• Homophone: shear

Etymology 1

From Middle English shere, scheere, schere, skere, from Old English s??re; merged with Middle English schyre, schire, shire, shir, from Old English s??r (“clear, bright; brilliant, gleaming, shining, splendid, resplendent; pure”) and Middle English skyr, from Old Norse skírr (“pure, bright, clear”), both from Proto-Germanic *sk?riz (“pure, sheer”) and *skairiz, from Proto-Indo-European *s??y- (“luster, gloss, shadow”).

Cognate with Danish skær, German schier (“sheer”), Dutch schier (“almost”), Gothic ???????????????????????? (skeirs, “clear, lucid”). Outside Germanic, cognate to Albanian hir (“grace, beauty; goodwill”).

Adjective

sheer (comparative sheerer or more sheer, superlative sheerest or most sheer)

1. (textiles) Very thin or transparent.

2. (obsolete) Pure in composition; unmixed; unadulterated.
   • c. 1592, William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew, Induction, scene ii:

     If she say I am not fourteen pence on the score for sheer ale, score me up for the lying’st knave in Christendom.

   • c. 1595, William Shakespeare, King Richard the Second, Act V, scene iii:

     Thou sheer, immaculate and silver fountain, / From when this stream through muddy passages / Hath held his current and defiled himself!

3. (by extension) Downright; complete; pure.
   • 2012, July 15. Richard Williams in Guardian Unlimited, Tour de France 2012: Carpet tacks cannot force Bradley Wiggins off track

     Cycling's complex etiquette contains an unwritten rule that riders in contention for a race win should not be penalised for sheer misfortune.

4. Used to emphasize the amount or degree of something.
   • 2012 October 31, David M. Halbfinger, "[4]," New York Times (retrieved 31 October 2012):

     Perhaps as startling as the sheer toll was the devastation to some of the state’s well-known locales. Boardwalks along the beach in Seaside Heights, Belmar and other towns on the Jersey Shore were blown away. Amusement parks, arcades and restaurants all but vanished. Bridges to barrier islands buckled, preventing residents from even inspecting the damage to their property.

5. Very steep; almost vertical or perpendicular.

Synonyms

• (very thin or transparent): diaphanous, see-through, thin
• (pure, unmixed): pure, undiluted
• (downright, complete): downright, mere (obsolete), pure, unmitigated
• (straight up and down): perpendicular, steep, vertical

Derived terms

• sheerly
• sheerness
• sheer-to-waist

Translations

Adverb

sheer (comparative more sheer, superlative most sheer)

1. (archaic) Clean; quite; at once.

Translations

Noun

sheer (plural sheers)

1. A sheer curtain or fabric.

Translations

Etymology 2

Perhaps from Dutch scheren (“to move aside, skim”); see also shear.

Noun

sheer (plural sheers)

1. (nautical) The curve of the main deck or gunwale from bow to stern.
2. (nautical) An abrupt swerve from the course of a ship.

Translations

Verb

sheer (third-person singular simple present sheers, present participle sheering, simple past and past participle sheered)

1. (chiefly nautical) To swerve from a course.
2. (obsolete) To shear.

   • So thick, our navy scarce could sheer their way

Translations

Further reading

• sheer at OneLook Dictionary Search
• Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “sheer”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

References

Anagrams

• Esher, Herse, Rhees, heers, here's, heres, herse

Burushaski

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [?e??]

Noun

sheer (plural sheerisho)

1. lion

References

Sadaf Munshi (2015) , “Word Lists”, in Burushaski Language Documentation Project?^[5].

Middle English

Noun

sheer

1. Alternative form of shere

English

Etymology

From Latin ultra.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??lt??/

Adjective

ultra (comparative more ultra, superlative most ultra)

1. Extreme; far beyond the norm; fanatical; uncompromising.

   an ultra reformer; ultra measures

Noun

ultra (plural ultras)

1. An ultraroyalist in France.
   • 1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber 1992, p. 37:

     "At any rate that is what he explained to me," I said hastily while the lawyer rubbed his long ultra's nose and sighed.

2. An extremist, especially an ultranationalist.
   • 2005, "Foreign ultra killed, three injured in J&K," The Times of India, 29 Dec. (retrieved 21 Apr. 2009):

     Five militants were nabbed while four ultras of Harkat-ul-Jehad-e-Islami (HuJI) gave themselves up.

3. (soccer) An especially devoted football fan, typically associated with the intimidating use of extremist slogans, pyrotechnics and sometimes hooligan violence.
   • 2012, ALINA BERNSTEIN, Neil Blain, Sport, Media, Culture: Global and Local Dimensions, Routledge ?ISBN, page 183

     A similar view is expressed by a Turin supporter in Segre's study, but in this case it is more specifically addressed to how powerful teams, such as Juventus, get preferential treatment in reports on the negative aspects of the ultras world.

   • 2013, Richard Guilianotti, Football, Violence and Social Identity, Routledge ?ISBN, page 77

     If a member of an official football club can be said to be a citizen of the football world, an ultra has to be considered as a militant.

   • 2015, Jamie Cleland, A Sociology of Football in a Global Context, Routledge ?ISBN, page 30

     Although the intention initially was to distribute tickets and arrange travel to away matches, ultras quickly became actively organised and developed an overtly passionate cultural and political identity inside each curva

4. (athletics) An ultramarathon.
5. (climbing) An ultra-prominent peak.
6. (usually capitalised) Code name used by British codebreakers during World War 2 for decrypted information gained from the enemy.

Related terms

• ulterior
• ultimate
• ultra-

Anagrams

• lutar

Finnish

Noun

ultra

1. (aviation) ultralight (aircraft that weighs very little)
2. Short for ultraäänitutkimus.

Declension

Synonyms

• (aircraft): ultrakevyt, ultrakevyt lentokone, UL-kone

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /yl.t?a/

Adjective

ultra (plural ultras)

1. ultra, extreme

Noun

ultra m or f (plural ultras)

1. extremist
2. (historical) an ultra-royalist during the Bourbon Restoration period in France

Further reading

• “ultra” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Ido

Etymology

Borrowed from English ultra, French outre, Italian oltre, Spanish ultra.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?ul.tra/

Adjective

ultra

1. ultra: beyond due limit
2. further, additional

Derived terms

References

• Progreso III (in Ido), 1910–1911, page 90
• Progreso V (in Ido), 1912–1913, page 593
• Progreso VII (in Ido), 1914, page 481

Latin

Etymology

From uls + -ter + -? (adverb). See also citr?, intr?, extr?.

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /?ul.tra?/, [????t??ä?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /?ul.tra/, [?ul?t???]

Preposition

ultr? (+ accusative)

1. beyond

Adverb

ultr? (not comparable)

1. beyond, further
2. additionally, besides

Descendants

References

• ultra in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• ultra in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• ultra in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book?^[1], London: Macmillan and Co.

Anagrams

• lutra

Spanish

Adjective

ultra (plural ultras)

1. extreme

Noun

ultra m or f (plural ultras)

1. far-right extremist
2. hooligan, hardened fan