cutting off vs shearing

cutting off and shearing both are nouns.

Word	Noun	Adjective	Verb	Adverb
cutting off	Yes	No	No	No
shearing	Yes	No	No	No

As nouns, shearing is a hyponym of cutting off; that is, shearing is a word with a more specific, narrower meaning than cutting off:

Other hyponyms of cutting off include clip, clipping, snip, haircut, clipping, trim, trimming.

cutting off (noun)	shearing (noun)
the act of shortening something by chopping off the ends	removing by cutting off or clipping
the act of cutting something off