rend
Americanverb (used with object)
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to separate into parts with force or violence.
The storm rent the ship to pieces.
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to tear apart, split, or divide.
racial tension that is rending the nation.
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to pull or tear violently (often followed by away, off, up, etc.).
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to tear (one's garments or hair) in grief, rage, etc.
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to disturb (the air) sharply with loud noise.
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to harrow or distress (the heart) with painful feelings.
verb (used without object)
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to split or tear something.
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to become torn or split.
verb
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to tear with violent force or to be torn in this way; rip
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(tr) to tear or pull (one's clothes, etc), esp as a manifestation of rage or grief
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(tr) (of a noise or cry) to disturb (the air, silence, etc) with a shrill or piercing tone
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(tr) to pain or distress (the heart, conscience, etc)
Synonym Usage
See tear 2.
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of rend
First recorded before 950; Middle English renden, Old English rendan; cognate with Old Frisian renda
Explanation
The verb rend means to tear with force or violence, or into many pieces. Your parents won't be happy if your new kitten decides to rend their brand new curtains with her tiny claws. Tear, rip, and rend are all synonyms, but it's a question of degree. Of the three, rend implies the most violent separation. You can also use rend figuratively to express great emotional distress or to describe a sharp, piercing sound. If you're betrayed by a friend, it rends your heart right out of your chest.
Vocabulary lists containing rend
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
"If global debt resumes its rising rend going forward, the debt rollercoaster since the pandemic will look nothing more than a temporary deviation around its long-term rising trend."
From Reuters • Sep. 13, 2023
Snook does everything but rend her garments in a performance that only emphasizes the busy vapidity of Hannah Kent’s script.
From New York Times • Jun. 28, 2023
Some people have wondered if his departure in early 2016 didn’t somehow rend the fabric of space-time and send us hurtling into a dimension of alternate outcomes.
From Washington Post • Apr. 29, 2021
And that remains its role now, as thousands of researchers join forces in a collective mission: to better know SARS-CoV-2 and to rend that virus’s complexities into a blueprint to plan its containment and control.
From Scientific American • Mar. 10, 2021
Then the Black Captain rose in his stirrups and cried aloud in a dreadful voice, speaking in some forgotten tongue words of power and terror to rend both heart and stone.
From "The Return of the King" by J.R.R. Tolkien
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
