tearing

1. 1
   verb

   Present participle of tear.

   The wind was tearing through the valley by midnight.

   Tearing the contract in half, she walked out of the meeting.

   Note

   One spelling covers two jobs: the progressive participle (the wind was tearing through the valley) and the gerund that names the action (tearing paper is easy). It carries every use of the verb, from tearing down a building to tearing an opening in a fence. Keep it apart from the medical word for watering eyes, which comes from tear, the drop, not tear, the rip.

2. 2
   SayTEER-ingUS/ˈtɪɹ.ɪŋ/UK/ˈtɪə.ɹɪŋ/

   noununcountable

   The continuous overflow of tears from the eyes; epiphora.

   Like rain spilling over a gutter that cannot carry it away fast enough.

   The doctor noted excessive tearing in the patient's left eye.

   Persistent tearing can signal a blocked drainage duct.

   Similarwatering, lacrimation

   Note

   A clinician's plain word for a symptom whose formal name is epiphora. The overflow can come from making too many tears or from tears failing to drain away. It is used as an uncountable noun, as in excessive tearing or persistent tearing, never "a tearing". It is unrelated to the act of ripping, which happens to share its spelling.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   The act of ripping something apart, or the split that results; a laceration.

   The tearing of the ligament required months of recovery.

   A sudden tearing in the fabric ruined the new dress.

   Similarrupture, ripping, laceration, rip

4. 4
   noununcountable

   A visual glitch in which the display shows parts of two or more frames at the same time, breaking the image into mismatched bands.

   Players reported tearing whenever the camera panned quickly across the battlefield.

   Enabling vertical sync eliminated the tearing on his monitor.

   Note

   A graphics term whose cause is timing. The display is partway through drawing one frame when the buffer behind it swaps, so the image splits along a horizontal seam into parts of different frames. Swapping buffers is not enough by itself. David P. Luebke's Level of Detail for 3D Graphics (2003) notes that tearing still results if the swap lands mid-refresh. The usual cure is vertical sync, which makes the swap wait.

5. 5
   adjectivecolloquial

   Marked by great haste; very hurried and rushed.

   She arrived in a tearing hurry, breathless and disheveled.

   The whole office was in a tearing rush before the deadline.

   Similarmad, desperate, frantic

   Note

   Its natural home is the phrase a tearing hurry, but it can describe things as well as moods. Thackeray's Vanity Fair (1847–48) has dandies home on furlough "driving in tearing cabs", which means cabs going at a reckless pace. Use it before a word for haste or speed, and keep it to conversational writing. In a formal report, rushed or frantic sits better.

6. 6
   adjectivecolloquial

   Extremely great in size or impact; enormous.

   The play was a tearing success, selling out every night.

   They lived in a tearing great mansion overlooking the bay.

   Similarroaring, huge, enormous, tremendous

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