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Tear vs Wrest - What's the difference?

tear | wrest | Related terms |

Tear is a related term of wrest.


As verbs the difference between tear and wrest

is that 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 while wrest is to pull or twist violently.

As nouns the difference between tear and wrest

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 wrest is the act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.

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.

    wrest

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To pull or twist violently.
  • To obtain by pulling or violent force.
  • He wrested the remote control from my grasp and changed the channel.
  • * Milton
  • Did not she / Of Timna first betray me, and reveal / The secret wrested from me
  • (figuratively) To seize.
  • * Macaulay
  • They instantly wrested the government out of the hands of Hastings.
  • * 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 12
  • There was one of the tribe of Tarzan who questioned his authority, and that was Terkoz, the son of Tublat, but he so feared the keen knife and the deadly arrows of his new lord that he confined the manifestation of his objections to petty disobediences and irritating mannerisms; Tarzan knew, however, that he but waited his opportunity to wrest the kingship from him by some sudden stroke of treachery, and so he was ever on his guard against surprise.
  • (figuratively) To twist, pervert, distort.
  • * Bible, Exodus xxiii. 6
  • Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor.
  • * South
  • their arts of wresting , corrupting, and false interpreting the holy text
  • * 1597 , Shakespeare,
  • And, I beseech you,
    Wrest once the law to your authority;
    To do a great right do a little wrong,
    And curb this cruel devil of his will.
  • To tune with a wrest, or key.
  • Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.
  • (Hooker)
  • (obsolete) Active or motive power.
  • (Spenser)
  • (music) A key to tune a stringed instrument.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
  • The minstrel wore round his neck a silver chain, by which hung the wrest , or key, with which he tuned his harp.
  • A partition in a water wheel by which the form of the buckets is determined.
  • Derived terms

    * wrest pin * wrest plank (Webster 1913)

    Anagrams

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