Word.ws English Dictionary

tear-throat

tear-throat noun: a blustering, boisterous person.

Noun

tear-throat (plural tear-throats)

  1. (obsolete) A blustering, boisterous person.
    • The majestical king of fishes, heroical most magnificent Herring, armed with white and red, keeps his court in all this hurly-burly, not like a tyrannical tear-throat in open arms, but like wise Diogenes in a barrel[…]1630, John Taylor, Jack a Lent; republished in Works of John Taylor, the Water-Poet, London: Reeves and Turner, 1876, page 15
  2. (obsolete) An overactor.

Adjective

tear-throat (comparative more tear-throat, superlative most tear-throat)

  1. (obsolete) Vociferous.
    • […]upon which was erected the true picture of a most unmatchable Hangman[…]for this tear-throat termagant is a fellow in folio, a commander of such great command, and of such greatness to command, that I never saw any that in that respect could countermand him[…]1617, John Taylor, Taylor's Travels; republished in Works of John Taylor, the Water-Poet, London: Reeves and Turner, 1876, pages 8–9
    • The cheap entertainment of the “tear-throat” Red Bull plays, with their battles, clowns, and fireworks, has been sharply contrasted with the innovative, “literary” dramatic styles of the hall-playhouses, which favored witplay over swordplay[…]2013, Eleanor Collins, “Old Repertory, New Theatre”, in Martin Procházka, Andreas Höfele, Hanna Scolnicov, Michael Dobson, editors, Proceedings of the Ninth World Shakespeare Congress, →ISBN, page 151
  2. (obsolete) Amateurish; characterized by overacting.
    • Or was he just going to expose the tear-throat acting in the Rose?2000, Robert M. Gorrell, Murder at the Rose, →ISBN
    Synonyms:
    hammy

Synonyms of tear-throat

Forms of tear-throat

Noun
pluraltear-throats
Adjective
comparativemore tear-throat
superlativemost tear-throat

Origin of tear-throat

From tear + throat.

Questions about tear-throat

What does tear-throat mean?
Tear-throat means a blustering, boisterous person.
What part of speech is tear-throat?
Tear-throat can be a noun or an adjective.
What is the plural of tear-throat?
The plural of tear-throat is tear-throats.

Words near tear-throat in the dictionary

  1. tear-mouths
  2. tear-off
  3. tear-offs
  4. tear-pit
  5. tear-stained
  6. tear-throat
  7. tear-throats
  8. tear-up
  9. tear-ups
  10. tearable
  11. tearably

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tear-throat (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.

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