Word.ws English Dictionary

tears apart

tears apart is the third-person singular simple present indicative of tear apart.

Meaning of tear apart

Verb

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

  1. (transitive) Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see tear, apart.
    • She tore her ex-boyfriend’s clothes apart in fury.
  2. (transitive) To destroy.
    • The bomb tore apart most of the town hall.
  3. (transitive) To cause to separate suddenly or violently.
    • Love, love will tear us apart again1979, Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart”
    Synonyms:
    rive
  4. (figuratively, transitive) To defeat overwhelmingly.
    • But Celtic could smell blood and they tore the Reds apart in the 12th minute.2011 February 1, Keir Murray, “Aberdeen 0 - 3 Celtic”, in BBC
    Synonyms:
    take apart

Questions about tears apart

What is tears apart the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Tears apart is the third-person singular simple present indicative of tear apart.

Words near tears apart in the dictionary

  1. tearpits
  2. tearproof
  3. tears
  4. tears a cat
  5. tears along
  6. tears apart
  7. tears ass
  8. tears at
  9. tears away
  10. tears before bedtime
  11. tears down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: tears apart (page history and authors); tear apart (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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