Shear
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’.
wiktionary
From Middle English sheren, scheren, from Old English sċieran, from Proto-West Germanic *skeran, from Proto-Germanic *skeraną, from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker-(“to cut”).
Cognate with West Frisian skeare, Low German scheren, Dutch scheren, German scheren, Danish skære, Norwegian Bokmål skjære, Norwegian Nynorsk skjera, Swedish skära; and (from Indo-European) with Ancient Greek κείρω(keírō, “I cut off”), Latin caro(“flesh”), Albanian shqerr(“to tear, cut”), harr(“to cut, to mow”), Lithuanian skìrti(“separate”), Welsh ysgar(“separate”). See also sharp.
etymonline
shear (v.)
Old English sceran, scieran (class IV strong verb; past tense scear, past participle scoren) "to cleave, hew, cut with a sharp instrument; cut (hair); shear (sheep)," from Proto-Germanic *skero "to cut" (source also of Old Norse and Old Frisian skera, Dutch scheren, German scheren "to shear"), from PIE root *sker- (1) "to cut."
shear (n.)
"act of clipping," 1610s, also as a unit of measure of the age of a sheep, from shear (v.). Scientific and mechanical sense "type of strain" is from 1850.
