Definition
verbTo rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart, whether intentionally or not; to destroy or separate.
verbTo injure as if by pulling apart.
Sentence Examples
If he sends me any letters, I just tear them up and throw them away.
If she's not careful she'll tear a ligament doing that.
This sheet has a tear in it.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English teren, from Old English teran (“to tear, lacerate”), from Proto-Germanic *teraną (“to tear, tear apart, rip”), from Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to tear, tear apart”).
Cognate with Scots tere, teir, tair (“to rend, lacerate, wound, rip, tear out”), Dutch teren (“to eliminate, efface, live, survive by consumption”), German zehren (“to consume, misuse”), German zerren (“to tug, rip, tear”), Danish tære (“to consume”), Swedish tära (“to fret, consume, deplete, use up”), Icelandic tæra (“to clear, corrode”). Outside Germanic, cognate to Ancient Greek δέρω (dérō, “to skin”), Albanian ther (“to slay, skin, pierce”). Doublet of tire.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.
He suffered, poor man, at seeing her so badly dressed, with laceless boots, and the arm-holes of her pinafore torn down to the hips; for the charwoman took no care of her."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
"[A] surge of muddy water tore him free from his sandy nook and tumbled him down the gully."
— 2012, Max Overton, Horemheb:
"I waited to hear no more, but tore up the village to find Poirot."
— 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, London: Pan Books, published 1954, page 133:
"I've been tearing around in my fucking nightgown. 24/7 Sylvia Plath."
— 2019, Lana Del Rey, Hope Is a Dangerous Thing:
"I pray you in your Letters, / When you ſhall theſe vnluckie deeds relate, / Speake of me, as I am. […] / Of one, whoſe ſubdu'd Eyes, / Albeit un-vsed to the melting moode, / Drops teares as faſt as the Arabian Trees / Their Medicinable gumme."
— 1603, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies, London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, act V, scene ii, page 338: