subs. (common).—A boisterous jollification; a SPREE (q.v.). As verb. (colloquial) = to move, speak, or act violently; to rant; to fume. Hence TEARER or TEAR CAT or TIMOTHY TEARCAT = (1) a blusterer; a bully; a ROARER (q.v.); and (2) anything violent. TEARING = violent, raving, etc.; TEAR-MOUTH (or TEAR-THROAT) = a ranting actor: and a adj. = vociferous; TO TEAR CHRIST’S BODY (old colloquial) = to blaspheme. TO TEAR ONE’S BEARD (or HAIR) = a simile of violent emotion.
1383. CHAUCER, The Canterbury Tales, 13,889, ‘The Pardoneres Tale.’
| His othes been so greet and so dampnable, | |
| That it is grisly for to hiere hem swere. | |
| Our blisful LORDES BODY thay TO-TERE. |
1563. FOXE, Acts and Monuments, viii. 641. [He speaks of swearers as] TEARERS OF GOD.
1592. SHAKESPEARE, Midsummer Night’s Dream, i. 2. I could play Ercles rarely, or a part TO TEAR A CAT IN. Ibid. (1608), Antony and Cleopatra, iv. 12. In the midst a TEARING groan.
1601. JONSON, The Poetaster, iii. 1. You grow rich, you do, and purchase, you TWOPENNY TEAR-MOUTH.
1606. JOHN DAY, The Ile of Guls, Induction. I had rather heare two good bawdy jests, than a whole play of such TEAR-CAT thunder-claps.
1611. MIDDLETON, The Roaring Girle. Dramatis Personæ. TEAR-CAT, a ruffian.
1630. TAYLOR (‘The Water Poet’), Jack a Lent, in Works [NARES]. The majesticall king of fishes … keepes his court in all this hurly-burly, not like a tyrannical TEAR-THROAT in open arms, but like wise Diogenes in a barrell.
1672. WYCHERLEY, Love in a Wood [ROUTLEDGE], 17, 41 [T. L. KINGTON-OLIPHANT, The New English, ii. 107–8. We have seen a TEARING groan about 1610; we read of TEARING (boisterous) wits, and of TEARING ladies; hence come our tearing SPIRITS].
1672. COTTON, Scarronides, or Virgil Travestie (1725), I. 9.
| A huffing Jack, a plundering TEARER, | |
| A vap’ring Scab, and a great SWEARER. |
1692. SIR R. L’ESTRANGE, Fables, 245. This Bull in the Fable, that ran TEARING Mad for the Pinching of a Mouse.
1713. ADDISON, Cato, ii. 5. Gods! I could TEAR MY BEARD to hear you talk.
1767. STERNE, Tristram Shandy, vii. 19. Though you do get on at a TEARING rate, yet you get on but uneasily.
1819. SCOTT [LOCKHART (1902), vi. 41], Letter to Southey. Such a letter as Kean wrote t’other day to a poor author, who … had, at least, the right to be treated as a gentleman by a copper-laced two-penny TEARMOUTH.
1843. DICKENS, A Christmas Carol, iii. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came TEARING IN.
1847–8. THACKERAY, Vanity Fair, lx. Immense dandies … driving in TEARING cabs.
1852. BRISTED, The Upper Ten Thousand, 25–6. He TEARS along BEHIND him a sleigh of the commonest construction, a mere deal box on runners, furnished with an ancient and fragmentary buffalo, which serves for robe and cushion both.
1867. W. F. BROWN, Capt. Smith and Pocahontas [BARTLETT].
| But the lofty chief’s fair daughter | |
| Told her Pa ‘he hadn’t ought’er;’ | |
| And the way she TORE AROUND, induced him to behave. |
1869. H. B. STOWE, Oldtown Folks, xlii. Aunt Lois, she ’s ben bilin’ up no end o’ doughnuts, an’ TEARIN’ ROUND ’nough to drive the house out o’ the winders, to git everything ready for ye.
TO TEAR ONE’S SEAT, verb. phr. (tailors’).—To attempt too much.
