rend
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: Rend
Etymology
From Middle English renden, from Old English rendan (“to rend, tear, cut, lacerate, cut down”), from Proto-West Germanic *(h)randijan (“to tear”), of uncertain origin. Believed by some to be the causative of Proto-Germanic *hrindaną (“to push”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱret-, *kret- (“to hit, beat”), which would make it related to Old English hrindan (“to thrust, push”). Cognate with Scots rent (“to rend, tear”), Old Frisian renda (“to tear”).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ɹɛnd/
Audio (Southern England): (file) - Rhymes: -ɛnd
Verb
rend (third-person singular simple present rends, present participle rending, simple past and past participle rent or rended)
- (transitive) To separate into parts with force or sudden violence; to split; to burst
- Powder rends a rock in blasting.
- Lightning rends an oak.
- 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
- If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak / And peg thee in his knotty entrails till / Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.
- 1970, Alvin Toffler, Future Shock: Bantam Books, page 317:
- We are most vulnerable now to the messages of the new subcults, to the claims and counterclaims that rend the air.
- (transitive) To part or tear off forcibly; to take away by force; to amputate.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Job 2:12:
- And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 51, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 260:
- For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas.
- (intransitive) To be rent or torn; to become parted; to separate; to split.
- Relationships may rend if tempers flare.
Derived terms
Translations
to separate into parts with force
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to part or tear off forcibly
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to be rent or torn
Noun
rend (plural rends)
- A violent separation of parts.
- 2002, John S. Anderson, A Daughter of Light, page xvi:
- She'd been in a couple of minor car accidents herself, and witnessed a few others, and the rend of metal was unforgettable.
Anagrams
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