[f. TEAR v.1]
1. An act of tearing or rending; the action of tearing; hence, damage caused by tearing (or similar violent action); usually in phr. tear and wear, wear and tear, including damage due both to accident and to ordinary wear: see WEAR; also used fig. in reference to body or mind.
1666. Pepys, Diary, 29 Sept. The wages, victuals, wear and tear … will come to above £3,000,000.
1705. R. Cromwell, Lett., in Eng. Hist. Rev. (1898), XIII. 123. A third for wages tare and ware, and upholding the stock.
1765. Foote, Commissary, I. Wks. 1799, II. 12. At that time of life, men can bustle and stir…; it is the only tear and wear season.
1767. A. Young, Farmer’s Lett. to People, 282. With ease to the horses, and not half the tear of irons, &c.
1874. Blackie, Self-Cult., 65. Plated work will never stand the tear and wear of life.
1901. Scotsman, 6 March, 9/7. The tear and wear of the campaign is telling severely on the … Yeomanry.
2. concr. A torn part or place; a rent or fissure.
1611. Cotgr., Deschirure, a teare, a rent.
1755. Johnson, Tear,… a rent, a fissure.
1824. Mrs. Cameron, Pink Tippet, II. 21. Mother has darned up the tears.
1891. Amiel’s Jrnl., 195. Each darn and tear has its story.
190[?]. Bookseller’s Catal. This copy has the title cut round and mounted, a few slight tears in margins, in one case the tear extends to text.
b. The line along which a piece of cloth or the like naturally tears.
1857. H. Miller, Test. Rocks, vi. 232. What a draper would term the tear of the one layer or fold.
3. An act of tearing, in senses 8 and 9 of the verb.
a. A rushing gallop or pace; esp. in advb. phrase full tear, full tilt, headlong. b. A spree (U.S. slang). c. A rage or passion; a violent flurry. d. Here may belong the Irish interjectional phr. tear and ages (? aches), wounds, expressing astonishment.
a. 1838. Dickens, O. Twist, xxxiii. He could have … galloped away, full tear, to the next stage.
1892. Sat. Rev., 2 Jan., 16/1. The rattling tear across country.
b. 1869. B. Harte, How Santa Claus, etc. Wks. (1872), 363. May be ye’d all like to come over to my house to-night and have a sort of tear round.
1895. Outing (U.S.), XXVII. 189/2. Then I should go on a tear—a regular one you know—and not come home for three whole days.
1896. Harper’s Mag., XCII. 775/2. Got me off on a tear somehow, and by the time I was sober again the money was ’most all gone.
c. 1880. W. Cornwall Gloss., s.v. Taer, ‘She got into a pretty taer.’
1890. Anthony’s Photogr. Bull., III. 128. If you keep quiet you may see a way out of the difficulty that you most certainly would not if you got in a ‘tare.’
d. 1841. Lever, C. O’Malley, lxvii. Tear and ages! how sore my back is.
1842. S. Lover, Handy Andy, iii. ‘Tare an’ ouns!’ roared Murphy, ‘how Andy runs.’
1893. Baring-Gould, Cheap Jack Z., I. i. 13. ‘Tear and ages!’ sez I; ‘that’s a wonder of the world.’
