v.
Pe pres. 3 pl. shereʒ, pp. schorne
(1) 'to cut; meander along'; (2) 'make bright or pure'
Two different identifications have been proposed for the various instances of the v. schere in Pe: (1) It could simply be identified with the native v. continuing OE sceran 'to cleave, hew, cut', derived from a common Gmc v. < PGmc *skeran- (cp. OFris skera, MLG skeren, OHG skeran, ON skera 'to cut, slaughter'). Objections to this explanation relate to the apparent sense of the word in individual instances. Thus Goll glosses 'cuts along' Pe 107 ('I want to a water by schore þat schereʒ'), but EVG argues that as the v. is intransitive, it is better identified with OED's sheer v. 2 'to swerve, alter course', which is only attested from the 17c. and may or may not represent a sense development from shear (OED; on the alternative possibility that it is an aphetic form from Lat exerrare, see EVG 107n). (2) The remaining two instances in Pe (165 and 213) both refer to gold ('as glysnande golde that man con schere' and 'as schorne gold schyr her fax thenne schon') and Goll prefers to derives these from a Scandinavian v., comparing OSw skǽra 'to purify' and OIcel skǽrr 'bright, clear' (note the similar gloss 'purify' in Morris, though the vocalism of his proposed etymon OE scéran is surely problematic); and McGee 375 and OED also entertain the possibility of ON derivation. The root of this verbal adj., which Heid. analyses as a variant of *skeiri- 'clear, pure' (cp. Go skeirs, OE scīr, OFris skīre, OS skīr, OHG skīri, ON skírr), is found only in NGmc, and ME skēr(e), late OE scēr (which may or may not show palatalised <sc>) is accordingly accounted for either by loan from ON or by reconstructing an unattested native etymon OE *scǣr (see further SPS). If this is the source, /ʃ/ has been substituted for /sk/, either in the borrowed adj. (see further MED s.v. skēr(e) or the proposed v. derived from it (cp. MED's entry for skēren (v.), which includes some variant spellings <sch->). Further difficulties are highlighted by EVG (165n) and Osgood (165n), who both argue in favour of the sense as at (1) and point out that the expected pp. of such a wk. caustive v. would be schered.
PGmc Ancestor
(1) *skeran-; (2) *skairi-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
(2) skǽrr 'bright, clear'
(ONP skǽrr (adj.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
(2) Far skærur, Icel skær, Norw skjær, ODan skiær, Dan skær, OSw skær, Sw skär
OE Cognate
(1) sceran (scæran, scieran, sceoran, sciran) 'to cleave, hew, cut'
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
DD2
(1) Common and widespread. (2) Pe 165 and 107 are OED's only citations of a v. sheer < the adj. sheer (with /ʃ/ as opposed to /sk/) in its sense (2) 'to make bright or pure' and sense (3) '?of water: to run bright and clear'. Outside of Pe, it offers one transitive use 'to clear, free, acquit from blame' from c1275 LSSerm. (Clg A.9) (MED gives this as an instance of its skēren (v.), and both note the Jesus MS spelling in <sk>).
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Pe 165, 213
On the sense in the various Pe contexts, cp. esp. EVG 107n, 165n (and Osgood 165n) with Goll 107n and 165n and see further Etymological Discussion (also (somewhat simplified) Vant 165n).