TEAR DOWN • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Tear down

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/tɛr daʊn/ Listen

verb

Tear v. t. (past tore, obs. tare; past part. torn; pres. part. tearing)

1.

To separate by violence; to pull apart by force; to rend; to lacerate; as, to tear cloth; to tear a garment; to tear the skin or flesh. "Tear him to pieces; he's a conspirator."

2.

Hence, to divide by violent measures; to disrupt; to rend; as, a party or government torn by factions.

3.

To rend away; to force away; to remove by force; to sunder; as, a child torn from its home. "The hand of fate Hath torn thee from me."

4.

To pull with violence; as, to tear the hair.

5.

To move violently; to agitate. "Once I loved torn ocean's roar."

To tear a cat, to rant violently; to rave; especially applied to theatrical ranting. (Obs.)

To tear down, to demolish violently; to pull or pluck down.

To tear off, to pull off by violence; to strip.

To tear out, to pull or draw out by violence; as, to tear out the eyes.

To tear up, to rip up; to remove from a fixed state by violence; as, to tear up a floor; to tear up the foundation of government or order.

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Etymology of 'Tear down'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Tear down" Quotes from Famous Books

... destroys peace and purity of mind. It also makes cowards of brave men, and the presence and tender affection of the one wronged suddenly become intolerable. Sin also begets sin. To the cowering fugitives Jehovah comes, as he always does, with a message intended to evoke a frank confession which would tear down the hideous barrier that their sin had reared between himself and them; but, like most foolish, blind Adams and Eves, they hug their crime to their breasts and raise the barrier heaven high by trying to excuse ...

— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent

... morsel of bread which, by the sweat of his brow, he has earned for his wife and children! It means to rob him who possesses nothing but the craft of his hands and his body, of his only right—the right to work. You are going to destroy the gold and silver manufactories, to burn the warehouse, to tear down the brass works in the New Town Eberswald! And why all this? Why do you intend to leave behind you this memorial of your vandalism? Because your empress is ...

— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach

... at double quick in the direction of the flimsy small structures between the old El Dorado and the Parker House. Some men, after a moment, brought ropes and axes. We began to tear down the shanties. ...

— Gold • Stewart White

... German princes to overlook all other interests, and to act contrary to all correct principles; covetousness caused them first to shake the decaying ancient German empire; covetousness caused them to destroy the old political organization of the country, and German hands were the first to tear down the ...

— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... Commissions, with the mines of the world at their back, cannot tame that lawless stream, cannot curb it or confine it, cannot say to it, Go here, or Go there, and make it obey; cannot save a shore which it has sentenced; cannot bar its path with an obstruction which it will not tear down, dance over, and laugh at. But a discreet man will not put these things into spoken words; for the West Point engineers have not their superiors anywhere; they know all that can be known of their abstruse science; ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

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