Past tense of tear
irregular verb
The past tense of tear is tore. The past participle is torn.
Forms of tear
| Base form (V1) | tear /tɛə/ |
|---|---|
| Past tense (V2) | tore /tɔː(ɹ)/ |
| Past participle (V3) | torn /tɔːn/ |
| Present participle | tearing /ˈtɛə.ɹɪŋ/ |
| Third person singular | tears /tɪɹz/ |
Past tense of tear by meaning
- to rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart...: tore
- to produce tears.: teared
Tore and torn in a sentence
- He tore his coat on the nail.
- He tore some muscles in a weight-lifting accident.
- As they accelerated onto the motorway, the wind tore the plywood off the car's roof-rack.From the entry wind
- I tore a hole in my nylons while walking home through the woods.From the entry nylon
- I gently tore the bloodied piece of paper out from her death grip.From the entry death grip
Meaning of tear
- verb To rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart, whether intentionally or not; to destroy or separate.
- verb To injure as if by pulling apart.
- verb To destroy or reduce abstract unity or coherence, such as social, political or emotional.
Verbs like tear
Questions about the past tense of tear
- What is the past tense of tear?
- The past tense of tear is tore.
- What is the past participle of tear?
- The past participle of tear is torn.
- Is tear a regular or irregular verb?
- Tear is an irregular verb: its past tense is not formed with -ed.
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tear (page history and authors) and the entries of its forms. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws left out forms marked obsolete, archaic, rare or dialectal and added the examples. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this page: “Past tense of tear.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/past-tense/tear. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.