Word.ws English Dictionary

tear at

tear at verb: to pull at violently.

Verb

tear at (third-person singular simple present tears at, present participle tearing at, simple past tore at, past participle torn at)

  1. To pull at violently.
    • When the house was empty she went from room to room. Ripping sheets from beds and tearing at them and kicking over nightstands and busting mirrors.2021, Michael Farris Smith, chapter 56, in Nick, New York; Boston; London: Little, Brown and Company, page 275
  2. To afflict or aggrieve.
    • The situation tore at his heart.

Forms of tear at

third-person singular presenttears at
present participletearing at
pasttore at
past participletorn at

Questions about tear at

What does tear at mean?
Tear at means to pull at violently.
What part of speech is tear at?
Tear at is a verb.
What is the past tense of tear at?
The past tense of tear at is tore at.

Words near tear at in the dictionary

  1. tear along
  2. tear and ages
  3. tear and wear
  4. tear apart
  5. tear ass
  6. tear at
  7. tear away
  8. tear blower
  9. tear blowers
  10. tear catcher
  11. tear catchers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tear at (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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