Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • intransitive verb To cut, tear apart, or tear away roughly or energetically. synonym: tear.
  • intransitive verb To cause to be pulled apart, as by an accident.
  • intransitive verb To split or saw (wood) along the grain.
  • intransitive verb Computers To copy (audio or audio-visual material from) a CD or DVD.
  • intransitive verb To subject to vehement criticism or attack.
  • intransitive verb Informal To produce, display, or utter suddenly.
  • intransitive verb Vulgar Slang To expel (a discharge of intestinal gas).
  • intransitive verb To become torn or split apart.
  • intransitive verb Informal To move quickly or violently.
  • noun The act of ripping.
  • noun A torn or split place, especially along a seam.
  • noun A ripsaw.
  • idiom (let it/'er) To allow something to start or happen with vigor or energy.
  • noun A dissolute person.
  • noun An old or worthless horse.
  • noun A stretch of water in a river, estuary, or tidal channel made rough by waves meeting an opposing current.
  • noun A rip current.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun An implement for sharpening a scythe. Compare rifle.
  • To break forth with violence; explode: with out.
  • To utter with sudden violence; give vent to, as an oath: with out.
  • A dialectal form of reap. Halliwell.
  • noun A handful of grain not thrashed.
  • To separate or divide the parts of by cutting or tearing; tear or cut open or off; split: as, to rip open a sack; to rip off the shingles of a roof; to rip up the belly; especially, to undo (a seam, as of a garment), either by cutting the threads of it or by pulling the two pieces of material apart, so that the sewing-thread is drawn out or broken.
  • To drag or force out or away, as by cutting or rending.
  • Figuratively, to open or reopen for search or disclosure; lay bare; search out and disclose: usually with up. See ripe.
  • To saw (wood) in the direction of the grain. See rip-saw.
  • To rob; pillage; plunder.
  • Synonyms Tear, Cleave, etc. See rend.
  • To be torn or split open; open or part: as, a seam rips by the breaking or drawing out of the threads; the ripping of a boiler at the seams.
  • To rush or drive headlong or with violence. [Colloq.]
  • noun A vicious, reckless, and worthless person; a “bad lot”: applied to a man or woman of vicious practices or propensities, and more or less worn by dissipation.
  • noun A worthless or vicious animal, as a horse or a mule.
  • noun A rent made by ripping or tearing; a laceration; the place so ripped.
  • noun A rip-saw.
  • noun A wicker basket in which to carry fish.
  • noun A ridge of water; a rapid.
  • noun A little wave; a ripple; especially, in the plural, ripples or waves formed over a bar or ledge, as when the wind and tide are opposed.

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

  • noun A rent made by ripping, esp. by a seam giving way; a tear; a place torn; laceration.
  • noun Slang. A term applied to a mean, worthless thing or person, as to a scamp, a debauchee, or a prostitute, or a worn-out horse.
  • noun A body of water made rough by the meeting of opposing tides or currents.
  • noun A wicker fish basket.
  • transitive verb To divide or separate the parts of, by cutting or tearing; to tear or cut open or off; to tear off or out by violence; ; -- commonly used with up, open, off.
  • transitive verb To get by, or as by, cutting or tearing.
  • transitive verb To tear up for search or disclosure, or for alteration; to search to the bottom; to discover; to disclose; -- usually with up.
  • transitive verb To saw (wood) lengthwise of the grain or fiber.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English rippen, from Flemish; see reup- in Indo-European roots.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Possibly shortening and alteration of reprobate.]

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Probably from rip.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Middle English rippen, from earlier ryppen ‘to pluck’, from Proto-Germanic *ruppōnan (compare West Frisian roppe, ropje, Low German ruppen, German rupfen), intensive of *raupijanan (compare Old English rīpan, rīepan ‘to plunder’, West Frisian rippe ‘to rip, tear’, German raufen 'to rip'), causative of Proto-Indo-European *roub ~ reub- (compare Albanian rrabe ‘maquis’, possibly Latin rubus ‘bramble’), variant of *reup- ‘to break’. More at reave, rob.

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Examples

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  • Rest In Peace "requiescat in pace" - See: requiescat

    January 6, 2009

  • Hebrew from Askenazic Jewish tradition: po nikbar or po nitman, meaning "Here Lies" and Sephardic custom is matzevet kevurat, meaning "the tombstone of the grave." matzevah, Matzeivah (stone pillar, monument) matzevat even (pillar of stone) matzevet (monument, idol images, stone pillars, monuments).ת.נ.צ.ב.ה. is customarily put on the bottom of a monument. These letters are an acronym for the Hebrew words תה�? נפשו/ה צרורה בצרור החיי�? (t'hay nafsho/ah tzrurah b'tzror hachaim), "May his/her soul be bound up in the bond of life." This paraphrases the words that Abigail told King David in I Samuel 25:29, "But my lord's soul shall be bound in the bond of life with the L-rd your G‑d."

    January 22, 2009