Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • In botany, having deep and irregular marginal incisions, as if produced by tearing; lacerate.
  • noun A Middle English form of turn.
  • noun In heraldry, a bearing representing an ancient spinning-wheel.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • p. p. of tear.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb Past participle of tear (rip, rend, speed).

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective disrupted by the pull of contrary forces
  • adjective having edges that are jagged from injury

Etymologies

Sorry, no etymologies found.

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Examples

  • Mechanically he ran the rope under the sleeve of his life-jacket; a mighty jerk seemed likely to pull him in halves as the smack sheered; then a heavy, dragging pain came -- he was being torn, torn, _torn_.

    A Dream of the North Sea James Runciman 1871

  • She was aware of Bashir watching her, eyes wide, his expression torn between protest at her treatment of a superior and reluctant agreement.

    Proud Helios Melissa Scott 2000

  • “Borg!” she howled, a word torn from her innermost self.

    VENDETTA: THE GIANT NOVEL PETER DAVID 1991

  • “Borg!” she howled, a word torn from her innermost self.

    VENDETTA: THE GIANT NOVEL PETER DAVID 1991

  • “Borg!” she howled, a word torn from her innermost self.

    VENDETTA: THE GIANT NOVEL PETER DAVID 1991

  • It was a little white packet, and had been opened and the label torn across, but you could read what was on it plain enough -- 'Arsenic -- Poison,' and the name of the chemist in London.

    In Homespun 1891

  • It was the work of an instant only to glance at the label torn from the picture-case.

    The Midnight Passenger : a novel Richard Savage 1874

  • Having stood before each of the fifty-nine canvases displayed on the third floor, this viewer at the elevator door had an impulse to run back in again, as at some lovelorn parting, and make the encounter yield a final word torn from the depths of what Henry James might have termed “the so beautifully unsaid.”

    Vitro Nasu » 2009 » January 2009

  • Having stood before each of the fifty-nine canvases displayed on the third floor, this viewer at the elevator door had an impulse to run back in again, as at some lovelorn parting, and make the encounter yield a final word torn from the depths of what Henry James might have termed “the so beautifully unsaid.”

    John Updike R.I.P 2009

  • It also contained a label torn from a pizza box, and made reference to various pizza toppings.

    Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph 2011

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