tear down
Britishverb
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Demolish, take apart, as in They tore down the old tenements , or He loved to tear down old engines . [Early 1600s]
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Vilify or discredit, as in He's always tearing down someone or other . [First half of 1900s]
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.
We saw the bulldozers tear down the East Wing of the White House, the many renderings of what the new structure is going to look like.
From Slate ● May 7, 2026
Design fans were upset by the couple’s decision to tear down the original structure, known as the Zimmerman House, which dated to the 1950s and was considered a design gem.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 6, 2026
He had no right to unilaterally tear down part of the White House.
From Salon ● Mar. 29, 2026
The answer isn’t to tear down communities like Kiryas Joel.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 29, 2026
In the brief moments it took to tear down our years of work, I felt nothing.
From "The Rock and the River" by Kekla Magoon
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.
