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tear
verb [I/T] (PULL APART) /teər/ (past tense tore /tɔr, toʊr/, past participle torn /tɔrn, toʊrn/)Definition
› to pull or be pulled apart or away from something else, or to cause this to happen to something: [T] I caught my shirt on a nail and tore the sleeve. [T] I tore a hole in my sleeve. [T] Several pages had been torn out of the book. [M] She tore off a strip of bandage and wrapped it around the wound. [M] He angrily tore the letter up (= into small pieces). [M] They tore down (= destroyed) the old building. [M] fig. The political situation threatened to tear the country apart.
(Definition of tear verb (PULL APART) from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary
© Cambridge University Press)
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