dead calm vs sheer

dead calm

adj
  • Completely still with no waves and no wind. 

noun
  • The condition of a perfectly flat sea with no waves and no wind. 

sheer

adj
  • Downright; complete; pure. 

  • Used to emphasize the amount or degree of something. 

  • Very steep; almost vertical or perpendicular. 

  • Very thin or transparent. 

noun
  • A sheer curtain or fabric. 

  • An abrupt swerve from the course of a ship. 

  • The curve of the main deck or gunwale from bow to stern. 

verb
  • To swerve from a course. 

How often have the words dead calm and sheer occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )