Word.ws English Dictionary

tear away

tear away verb: to remove (oneself or another person), overcoming that person's reluctance to be so removed.

Verb

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

  1. (often, reflexive, transitive) To remove (oneself or another person), overcoming that person's reluctance to be so removed.
    • I couldn't tear myself away from the movie after I had begun watching it.
    • Could I please tear you away from that video game for a moment?
  2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see tear, away.

Forms of tear away

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

Questions about tear away

What does tear away mean?
Tear away means to remove (oneself or another person), overcoming that person's reluctance to be so removed.
What part of speech is tear away?
Tear away is a verb.
What is the past tense of tear away?
The past tense of tear away is tore away.

Words near tear away in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tear away (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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