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Tear vs Tire - What's the difference?

tear | tire |

As nouns the difference between tear and tire

is that tear is a hole or break caused by tearing or tear can be a drop of clear, salty liquid produced from the eyes by crying or irritation while tire is bundle, skein, hank.

As a verb tear

is to rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart, whether intentionally or not; to destroy or separate or tear can be to produce tears.

tear

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) (m), from (etyl) .

Verb

  • To rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart, whether intentionally or not; to destroy or separate.
  • * 1856 : (Gustave Flaubert), (Madame Bovary), Part III Chapter XI, translated by Eleanor Marx-Aveling
  • He suffered, poor man, at seeing her so badly dressed, with laceless boots, and the arm-holes of her pinafore torn down to the hips; for the charwoman took no care of her.
  • To injure as if by pulling apart.
  • To cause to lose some kind of unity or coherence.
  • *
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=Then there came a reg'lar terror of a sou'wester same as you don't get one summer in a thousand, and blowed the shanty flat and ripped about half of the weir poles out of the sand. We spent consider'ble money getting 'em reset, and then a swordfish got into the pound and tore the nets all to slathers, right in the middle of the squiteague season.}}
  • To make (an opening) with force or energy.
  • To remove by tearing.
  • To demolish
  • To become torn, especially accidentally.
  • To move or act with great speed, energy, or violence.
  • To smash or enter something with great force.
  • Synonyms
    * (break) rend, rip * (remove by tearing) rip out, tear off, tear out

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A hole or break caused by tearing.
  • A small tear is easy to mend, if it is on the seam.
    Derived terms
    * wear and tear

    Derived terms

    * tearsheet

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) (m), (m), (m), (m), from (etyl) .

    Noun

    (wikipedia tear) (en noun)
  • A drop of clear, salty liquid produced from the eyes by crying or irritation.
  • * {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
  • , chapter=6 citation , passage=‘[…] I remember a lady coming to inspect St. Mary's Home where I was brought up and seeing us all in our lovely Elizabethan uniforms we were so proud of, and bursting into tears all over us because “it was wicked to dress us like charity children”. […]’.}}
  • Something in the form of a transparent drop of fluid matter; also, a solid, transparent, tear-shaped drop, as of some balsams or resins.
  • * Dryden
  • Let Araby extol her happy coast, / Her fragrant flowers, her trees with precious tears .
  • That which causes or accompanies tears; a lament; a dirge.
  • * Milton
  • some melodious tear
    Derived terms
    {{der3 , crocodile tears , shed a tear , teardrop , tear duct , tearful , tear up , teary , two tears in a bucket }}

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To produce tears.
  • Her eyes began to tear in the harsh wind.

    tire

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) tiren, tirien, teorien, from (etyl)

    Alternative forms

    * (l) (dialectal)

    Verb

    (tir) (of)
  • To become sleepy or weary.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2012 , date=September 7 , author=Phil McNulty , title=Moldova 0-5 England , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=As Moldova understandably tired after a night of ball chasing, Everton left-back Baines scored his first international goal as his deflected free-kick totally wrong-footed Namasco.}}
  • To make sleepy or weary.
  • To become bored or impatient (with)
  • I tire of this book.
  • To bore
  • Synonyms
    *

    References

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl)

    Alternative forms

    * (rubber covering on a wheel) tyre

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) Accoutrements, accessories.
  • * Philips
  • the tire of war
  • (obsolete) Dress, clothes, attire.
  • * 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , I.vii:
  • Ne spared they to strip her naked all. / Then when they had despoild her tire and call, / Such as she was, their eyes might her behold.
  • *, New York Review of Books 2001, p.66:
  • men like apes follow the fashions in tires , gestures, actions: if the king laugh, all laugh […].
  • A covering for the head; a headdress.
  • * Spenser
  • On her head she wore a tire of gold.
  • Metal rim of a wheel, especially that of a railroad locomotive.
  • (lb) The rubber covering on a wheel; a tyre.
  • A child's apron covering the upper part of the body, and tied with tape or cord; a pinafore. Also tier.
  • Usage notes
    * Tire is one of the few words where Canadian usage prefers the US spelling over the British spelling.

    Verb

    (tir)
  • (obsolete) To dress or adorn.
  • * Bible, 2 Kings ix. 30
  • [Jezebel] painted her face, and tired her head.

    Etymology 3

    (etyl) .

    Alternative forms

    * tyre

    Verb

    (tir)
  • (obsolete) To seize, pull, and tear prey, as a hawk does.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Even as an empty eagle, sharp by fast, / Tires with her beak on feathers, flesh, and bone.
  • * Ben Jonson
  • Ye dregs of baseness, vultures among men, / That tire upon the hearts of generous spirits.
  • (obsolete) To seize, rend, or tear something as prey; to be fixed upon, or engaged with, anything.
  • * Chapman
  • Thus made she her remove, / And left wrath tiring on her son.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Upon that were my thoughts tiring .

    Etymology 4

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A tier, row, or rank.
  • * Milton
  • In posture to displode their second tire / Of thunder.

    Anagrams

    * * * * * English ergative verbs ----