What's the difference between sheer and steep?

Sheer


Definition:

  • (v. i.) Bright; clear; pure; unmixed.
  • (v. i.) Very thin or transparent; -- applied to fabrics; as, sheer muslin.
  • (v. i.) Being only what it seems to be; obvious; simple; mere; downright; as, sheer folly; sheer nonsense.
  • (v. i.) Stright up and down; vertical; prpendicular.
  • (adv.) Clean; quite; at once.
  • (v. t.) To shear.
  • (v. i.) To decline or deviate from the line of the proper course; to turn aside; to swerve; as, a ship sheers from her course; a horse sheers at a bicycle.
  • (n.) The longitudinal upward curvature of the deck, gunwale, and lines of a vessel, as when viewed from the side.
  • (n.) The position of a vessel riding at single anchor and swinging clear of it.
  • (n.) A turn or change in a course.
  • (n.) Shears See Shear.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Problems associated with school-based clinics include vehement opposition to sex education, financing, and the sheer magnitude of the adolescents' health needs.
  • (2) They argue that the US, the world's largest producer of greenhouse gases per capita (China recently surpassed us in sheer volume), needs to lead the fight to limit carbon emissions, rather continuing to block global treaties as it has done in the past.
  • (3) But with the advantages and attractions that Scotland already has, and, more importantly, taking into account the morale boost, the sheer energisation of a whole people that would come about because we would finally have our destiny at least largely back in our own hands again – I think we could do it.
  • (4) Obviously, the sheer number of lasers being used both clinically and experimentally indicates a great potential for further advancement and refinement in technique and surgical outcomes.
  • (5) I was amazed by the sheer scale of the operation, easily mistaken for a full military assault on a kraken.
  • (6) We can inhabit only one version of being human – the only version that survives today – but what is fascinating is that palaeoanthropology shows us those other paths to becoming human, their successes and their eventual demise, whether through failure or just sheer bad luck.
  • (7) The report, extracts of which were published by the investigative news website Exaro , is said to include “devastating detail” of the corporation’s “sheer scale of awareness” of the late star’s activities.
  • (8) There is a policy review process, a manifesto and the small matter of winning another election between here and catastrophe, but the sheer barbarism of the outlined idea is breathtaking.
  • (9) Back in the 1970s, a severe economic crisis revealed the sheer unsustainability of government policies.
  • (10) So we started asking them ridiculous questions about being single," says Lucas, "and the sheer number of misunderstandings about each other's lives felt like comedic material."
  • (11) He skirted round the issue of historic responsibility for the misery but referred to the sheer scale of the sacrifice, pointing out that, among more than 14,000 parishes in the whole of England and Wales, only about 50 so-called "thankful parishes" saw all their soldiers return.
  • (12) But all that has changed since I discovered the sheer joy of hunting down items with “reduced” stickers at my local Waitrose.
  • (13) TUC general secretary Brendan Barber welcomed the letters, which argue against the Conservative party's position that the sheer scale of the UK deficit means public spending must be cut immediately.
  • (14) This year though, the annual fest of tit tape, weepy self-congratulation and sheer star power will be remembered for more than a frock faux pas: there was a serious cock-up .
  • (15) Brown, from Sheerness in Kent, who was to earn £15,000 a year from the role, has apologised for causing offence with the messages she posted between the ages of 14 and 16.
  • (16) I hope that people feel inspired enough, maybe in the sheer face of loss, to just do what they should be doing in life.
  • (17) David Winnick, the MP for Walsall North, said: "None of [May's] excuses can explain away the sheer incompetence and shambles that have occurred on her watch."
  • (18) Through combination with a spherical disc face perpendicular to the axis of rotation, which protrudes only slightly from the hemispherical catheter tip, with a maximum at the center and minimum at the lateral borders, the lathing head has only a slight risk of perforation and no undesired sheering forces (Figures 2a to 2d).
  • (19) Redwoods are taller, but giant sequoias win for sheer mass: the General Sherman's trunk has a volume of 1,487 cubic metres and is estimated to weigh over 2,000 tonnes.
  • (20) "Some of you may have heard we have a new judge this year," said Forsyth, summoning his finest brow-raise and hauling the audience at least temporarily on side by sheer force of showbiz will.

Steep


Definition:

  • (a.) Bright; glittering; fiery.
  • (v. t.) To soak in a liquid; to macerate; to extract the essence of by soaking; as, to soften seed by steeping it in water. Often used figuratively.
  • (v. i.) To undergo the process of soaking in a liquid; as, the tea is steeping.
  • (n.) Something steeped, or used in steeping; a fertilizing liquid to hasten the germination of seeds.
  • (n.) A rennet bag.
  • (v. t.) Making a large angle with the plane of the horizon; ascending or descending rapidly with respect to a horizontal line or a level; precipitous; as, a steep hill or mountain; a steep roof; a steep ascent; a steep declivity; a steep barometric gradient.
  • (v. t.) Difficult of access; not easy reached; lofty; elevated; high.
  • (v. t.) Excessive; as, a steep price.
  • (n.) A precipitous place, hill, mountain, rock, or ascent; any elevated object sloping with a large angle to the plane of the horizon; a precipice.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The dose response effect in this tumor is steep and combinations which compromise the dose of adriamycin too greatly are showing inferior results.
  • (2) Steep longitudinal and transverse gradients of glycogen are known to exist in the organ of Corti of the guinea pig, with preferential accumulation in the outer hair cells of the apical turns.
  • (3) The steep portion of the relationship between Retzius cell action potential amplitude and membrane potential extrapolated to an apparent reversal potential of -13 mV.
  • (4) This property of endotoxin can serve as a sensitive bioassay, although the dose-response curve is steep.
  • (5) With its steep hills and cobblestones, the neighbourhood of São Cristóvão in Ouro Preto isn’t an easy place to play football.
  • (6) Four patients with herpes zoster ophthalmicus developed peripheral corneal ulcers with steep central edges.
  • (7) The results showed that measurements of impression profiles and SEM photogrammetry gave the most accurate results adjacent to regions simulating steep cavity margins, whereas the profilometric technique gave erroneous results in these regions.
  • (8) The intensity dependence of the early ganglion cell discharge, its latency and initial impulse frequency, is shown to follow from such a waveform, assuming that 1) latency L = l + D, where l is the time it takes for the rod response linearly summed over the ganglion cell's receptive field to reach a criterion amplitude, and D is a constant delay; and 2) the initial frequency (below saturation) is proportional to the steepness of rise of the summed rod response at time l. It is shown that the intensity dependences of 1) human visual latency and 2) brightness sensation, including effects of stimulus area and duration, are accounted for by the same model.
  • (9) The new protocol (standardised exponential exercise protocol, STEEP) is suitable for use on either a treadmill or a bicycle ergometer.
  • (10) Based on the signals observed by organ absorbance spectrophotometry from two compartments with oxidases of markedly different O2 sensitivity, the mitochondria and the peroxisomes, a distribution between high O2 and zero O2 zones is postulated, an intermediate border zone of O2 concentrations between the K0,5 (O2) values being virtually absent (steep intercellular O2 gradients).
  • (11) A man who had been near them reached the hotel terrace first, scrambling up a steep sandy bank.
  • (12) Patients with steep sloping audiograms understand better and patients with a conductive hearing loss component understand less in noisy circumstances with a hearing aid.
  • (13) The operational values are useful in characterising the steepness of dose-incidence curves for normal tissue injury after different fractionation schedules.
  • (14) Scarborough council said leaving the houses standing could cause a domino-effect down the steep slope above the picturesque harbour where the explorer Captain James Cook lodged and learned his seafaring skills.
  • (15) It is shown that this individual exhibits approximate alignment of her photoreceptors with the center of the retinal sphere, clear evidence of side lobes on functions, and surprisingly steep SCE I functions.
  • (16) For cross-linked alpha alpha, however, the curve sags at temperatures somewhat below the region of principal cooperative loss of helix, the latter occurring at higher temperature but with the same steepness as in the non-cross-linked case.
  • (17) A reduced venous compliance (VC) and inadequate venoconstriction may impair hemodynamics during hemodialysis, the first by impairing plasma volume preservation and by inducing a steep fall in central venous pressure (CVP) during minor plasma volume loss, the second by inadequate mobilization of hemodynamically inactive blood volume.
  • (18) A generally similar pattern is seen in healthy controls and in patients with untreated pulmonary tuberculosis, treated leprosy, haemophilia A and chronic obstructive lung disease (COLD) patients treated with prednisolone, but the gradient of increasing CD4:CD8 ratio with depth into the dermis is significantly less steep in patients with tuberculosis, haemophilia and prednisolone-treated COLD than in the healthy controls.
  • (19) Some problem drugs may be recognized if they display one or more of the following characteristics: narrow therapeutic index, steep dose-effect relationship, nonlinear kinetics, variable bioavailability, and pharmacogenetically determined kinetics.
  • (20) Replacement of a half of Ca++ ions by Sr++ resulted in an augmentation of steepness of the dependence on sum of [Ca++] and [Sp++], and in a more prominent fall in relaxation velocity as compared with contraction velocity.