[f. TEAR v.1 + -ER1.]
1. One who or that which tears or rends.
In quot. 1828 applied to a (? canine) tooth; in quot. 1862, to a mechanical device for tearing something; in quot. 1886 to a ‘tearing’ cold.
1625. Massinger, New Way, V. i. I know you are a tearer. But I’ll have first your fangs pared off, and then Come nearer to you.
1682. Sec. Plea Nonconf., 4. The Tearers of the Church have made at me,… but … have hurt their Nails and Fingers.
1719. D’Urfey, Pills, II. 81. To Wearers and Tearers Of Manteau and Gown.
1828. Fleming, Brit. Zool., 9. In the lower jaw [of the badger], the bruiser is small, the chewer large, and there is an additional tearer.
1862. Jrnl. Soc. Arts, X. 329/2. The doughy mass is put into an iron box, or tearer, in which an iron cylinder, with iron teeth, rapidly revolves, tearing it into shreds.
1886. C. Keene, Lett., in Life, xi. (1892), 359. I suppose I’ve been boasting of my immunity from colds, for I’ve just had a tearer, so hoarse that I couldn’t sound a note.
† b. Tearer of God, a blasphemer or profane swearer (see TEAR v.1 3 b). Obs.
a. 1500. Hye Way to Spyttel H., 851, in Hazl., E. P. P., IV. 61. These blasphemers and these God terers.
1570. Foxe, A. & M. (ed. 2), 2303/1. Blasphemous and abominable swearers or rather tearers of God.
2. A person who tears or rushes along or about; a ranter, roisterer, swaggerer, bully.
1625, 1682 (see sense 1).
1664. Cotton, Scarron., I. Poet Wks. (1717), 8. A huffing Jack, & plund’ring Tearer.
1693. Congreve, Old Bach., IV. ix. Hist! hist! bully; dost thou see those tearers [Araminta and Belinda masked]?
1828. Webster, Tearer,… one that rages or raves with violence.
1862. M’Gilvray, Poems (ed. 2), 56 (E.D.D.). For faith she is a tearer, She frights the very swine.
