Library / English Dictionary

REND

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

Irregular inflected form: rent   

 I. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Tear or be torn violently

Example:

pull the cooked chicken into strips

Synonyms:

pull; rend; rip; rive

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "rend" is one way to...):

bust; rupture; snap; tear (separate or cause to separate abruptly)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Credits

 Context examples: 

The veil of self-indulgence was rent from head to foot.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

He was a middle-sized man, coarsely clad as became his calling, with a coloured shirt protruding through the rent in his tattered coat.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The woman rent a cabin on the hill, and for one week I see her no more.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

The Martinez heeled over, sharply, and there was a crashing and rending of timber.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

To be tied down to the regular payment of such a sum, on every rent day, is by no means desirable: it takes away one's independence.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

I shall let Everingham, and rent a place in this neighbourhood; perhaps Stanwix Lodge.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Pondering over these heart-rending tidings, Catherine walked slowly upstairs.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

In passion to rend and destroy, he never forgot that his enemy was in like passion to rend and destroy.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

Roderigo rent his chains asunder manfully, and Hugo died in agonies of remorse and arsenic, with a wild, "Ha! Ha!"

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

From Providence to Burgundy we are beset by every prowling hireling in Christendom, who rend and tear the country which you have left too weak to guard her own marches.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)