rend
- 1To tear or split something apart, or wrench it away, with sudden violent force; also, of a thing, to tear or split apart under strain.
Like a thunderclap splitting a tree trunk down the middle.
The explosion rent the building's facade from top to bottom.
Powerful currents can rend a wooden hull along its seams.
UsageThe past form is usually rent: the explosion rent the facade.
- 2To violently disturb the peace of a place or group, throwing it into turmoil.
Like a sudden quarrel that shatters the calm of a family dinner.
Civil war rent the nation, turning neighbors against one another.
Bitter disputes can rend even the closest communities.
UsageOften in the passive with by: a nation rent by civil war.
Less common meaning
- 3The act of tearing something violently apart; a violent separation of parts.
She'd been in a couple of minor car accidents herself, and witnessed a few others, and the rend of metal was unforgettable.
2002, John S. Anderson, A Daughter of Light
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Origin
Proto-West Germanic *(h)randijan ("to tear"), whose origin is uncertain, gave Old English rendan, meaning "to rend, tear, cut, lacerate," and then Middle English renden. One view holds that it is a causative form of *hrindaną, a Proto-Germanic verb meaning "to push," which would connect it with Old English hrindan ("to thrust, push").