Word.ws English Dictionary

tear-cat

tear-cat noun: an overactor.

Noun

tear-cat (plural tear-cats)

  1. (obsolete) An overactor.
    • Fie upon't, mere fustian; I had rather hear two good bawdy jests then a whole play of such tear-cat thunder-claps.1606, John Day, The Isle of Gulls, in White, Thomas, editor, The Old English Drama, volume 4, published 1830, Induction, page 15
    • I am cal'd by those that have seen my valour, Tear-Cat.1611, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, The Roaring Girl, act 5, scene 1

Synonyms of tear-cat

Forms of tear-cat

pluraltear-cats

Questions about tear-cat

What does tear-cat mean?
Tear-cat means an overactor.
What part of speech is tear-cat?
Tear-cat is a noun.
What is the plural of tear-cat?
The plural of tear-cat is tear-cats.

Words near tear-cat in the dictionary

  1. tear-ass
  2. tear-assed
  3. tear-asses
  4. tear-assing
  5. tear-brimmed
  6. tear-cat
  7. tear-cats
  8. tear-down
  9. tear-downs
  10. tear-gas
  11. tear-gases

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tear-cat (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “tear-cat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tear-cat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.