different between wring vs tear

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English wryngen, wringen, from Old English wringan, from Proto-Germanic *wringan? (compare West Frisian wringe, Low German wringen, Dutch wringen, German ringen ‘to wrestle’), from Proto-Indo-European *wren??- (compare Lithuanian reñgtis (“to bend down”), Ancient Greek ????? (rhímpha, “fast”)), nasalized variant of *wer??- ‘bind, squeeze’. More at worry.

Pronunciation

• enPR: r?ng, IPA^(key): /???/
• Homophone: ring
• Rhymes: -??

Verb

wring (third-person singular simple present wrings, present participle wringing, simple past wrung or wrang or (obsolete) wringed, past participle wrung or (obsolete) wringed)

1. To squeeze or twist (something) tightly so that liquid is forced out. See also wring out.
   • 1838, Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, London: Wiley and Putnam, Chapter 13, p. 152,^[1]

     […] we contrived to satisfy the cravings of thirst by suffering the shirts to become saturated, and then wringing them so as to let the grateful fluid trickle into our mouths.

   • 1933, George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz, Chapter 21, p. 154,^[2]

     […] he had sometimes wrung a dirty dishcloth into a customer’s soup before taking it in, just to be revenged upon a member of the bourgeoisie.

   • 1988, Anne Tyler, Breathing Lessons, New York: Knopf, Part 1, Chapter 1, p. 15,^[3]

     “I feel I’ve been wrung through a wringer,” Maggie said.

2. To extract (a liquid) from something wet, especially cloth, by squeezing and twisting it.
   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Judges 6.38,^[4]

     He rose up early on the morrow, and thrust the fleece together, and wringed the dew out of the fleece.

   • 1748, Tobias Smollett, The Adventures of Roderick Random, London: J. Osborn, Volume 1, Chapter 14, p. 107,^[5]

     [He] wrung the urine out of his perriwig, and lifting up a large stone, flung it with such force against the street-door of that house from whence he had been bedewed, that the lock giving way, it flew wide open,

   • 1952, Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road, New York: Arno Press and The New York Times, 1969, Chapter 8, p. 128,^[6]

     Heinz could have wrung enough vinegar out of Cally’s look to run his pickle works.

   • 1989, John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany, New York: William Morrow, Chapter 8, p. 381,^[7]

     […] he was thrilled by the spectacle of wringing his own blood from the sodden gauze pad into the sodden towel.

3. To obtain (something from or out of someone or something) by force.

   The police said they would wring the truth out of that heinous criminal.

   • c. 1590, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act III, Scene 1,^[8]

     No, Harry, Harry, ’tis no land of thine;

     Thy place is fill’d, thy sceptre wrung from thee,

   • 1741, Samuel Richardson, Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded, London: C. Rivington and J. Osborn, Volume 1, Letter 31, p. 268,^[9]

     Torture should not wring it from me, I assure you.

   • 1910, Emma Goldman, “Prisons: A Social Crime and Failure” in Anarchism and Other Essays, New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association, pp. 129-130,^[10]

     […] the enormous profits thus wrung from convict labor are a constant incentive to the contractors to exact from their unhappy victims tasks altogether beyond their strength […]

   • 1931, Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth, New York: John Day, Chapter 3, p. 35,^[11]

     He took his life from this earth; drop by drop by his sweat he wrung food from it and from the food, silver.

   • 1970, Robertson Davies, Fifth Business, Toronto: Macmillan, Part 6, Chapter 2, p. 278,^[12]

     […] his confidences were not wrung from him against his will but gushed like oil from a well

4. To draw (something from or out of someone); to generate (something) as a response.

   Synonyms: elicit, provoke

   • c. 1598, William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, Act V, Scene 1,^[13]

     Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!

   • 1846, Charlotte Brontë, “Evening Solace” in Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, London: Smith, Elder, p. 122,^[14]

     And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,

     Now cause but some mild tears to flow.
5. To hold (something) tightly and press or twist.

   (Synonyms: strangle, throttle)

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Leviticus 1.15,^[15]

     The priest shall bring it [a dove] unto the altar, and wring off his head,

   • 1855, Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South, London: Chapman & Hall, Volume 1, Chapter 16, p. 195,^[16]

     Margaret could not speak for crying; but she wrung his hand at parting.

   • 1915, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of the Island, Boston: Page, Chapter 40, p. 316,^[17]

     The Haunted Wood was full of the groans of mighty trees wrung in the tempest,

   • 1929, William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, New York: Vintage, 1956, “April Eighth, 1928,” p. 379,^[18]

     Jason stood, slowly wringing the brim of his hat in his hands.

   • 2008, Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger, London: Atlantic Books, p. 202,^[19]

     […] I had to wring your ears to make you do any work.

6. To cause pain or distress to (someone / one's heart, soul, etc.).

   Synonyms: torment, torture

   • 1622, Francis Bacon, The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seuenth, London: Matthew Lownes and William Barret, p. 37,^[20]

     […] the King began to find where his Shooe did wring him, and that it was his depressing of the House of YORKE, that did ranckle and fester the affections of his People.

   • 1702, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, The History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England, Oxford, 1707, Volume 1, Part 1, Book , p. 60,^[21]

     […] too much griev’d, and wrung by an uneasy and streight Fortune;

   • 1713, Joseph Addison, Cato, a Tragedy, London: J. Tonson, Act 1, Scene 1, p. 3,^[22]

     […] didst thou taste but half the Griefs

     That wring my Soul, thou cou’dst not talk thus coldly.

   • 1886, Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, London: Longmans, Green, “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case,” p. 135,^[23]

     […] a stringent and profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me could avail to break

   • 1927, Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse, London: The Hogarth Press, Part 3, section 6, p. 275,^[24]

     And then to want and not to have—to want and want—how that wrung the heart, and wrung it again and again!

7. To slide two ultraflat surfaces together such that their faces bond.
   • 2010, Mikhail Grishin, Advances in Solid State Lasers: Development and Applications, BoD – Books on Demand (?ISBN), page 186:

     The uncertainty of wringing effect is 6.9 nm, which can be determined by wringing the same gauge block on the base plate repeatedly. The uncertainty of optical components can be estimated by wave-front errors of each components, ?/10~ ...

   • 2001, Jennifer E. Decker, Nicholas Brown, Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers, European Optical Society, Wissenschaftliche Gesellschaft Lasertechnik, Recent Developments in Traceable Dimensional Measurements: 20-21 June 2001, Munich, Germany, Society of Photo Optical (?ISBN)

     The surface finish of the ceramic platen appears very similar to that of the gauge block by eye . The pack experiment method to evaluate phase correction is valuable in that the differences associated with wringing two different materials and ...

   • 1997, Bulletin of NRLM.

     The number of optical wringing procedures performed for each gauge block was five , and the number of measurements for each wringing procedure was eleven . Figure 10 shows the dispersion of ( EGB + ESUB ) for gauge block GB - 100A ...

   • 1922, Canada. Patent Office, The Canadian Patent Office Record and Register of Copyrights and Trade Marks

     A gauge block provided with a flat surface adapted to have wringing engagement with a similar surface of another block and having uniformly distributed approximately straight scratches extending in all directions. 5. A gauge block provided ...

8. (intransitive, obsolete) To twist, as if in pain.

   Synonym: writhe

   • c. 1598, William Shakespeare, Much Ado about Nothing, Act V, Scene 1,^[25]

     […] ’tis all men’s office to speak patience

     To those that wring under the load of sorrow.

9. (obsolete) To give an incorrect meaning to (words, teachings, etc.).

   Synonyms: distort, pervert, twist, wrest

   • 1572, John Whitgift, An Answere to a Certen Libel Intituled, An Admonition to the Parliament, London: Humfrey Toy, p. 39,^[26]

     Lord how dare these men thus wring the scriptures?

10. (obsolete) To subject (someone) to extortion; to afflict or oppress in order to enforce compliance.
    • c. 1590,, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2, Act V, Scene 1,^[27]

      To wring the widow from her custom’d right,

    • 1630, John Hayward, The Life and Raigne of King Edward the Sixt, London: John Partridge, p. 144,^[28]

      […] the Merchant aduenturers haue beene often wronged and wringed to the quicke,

11. (nautical) To bend or strain out of its position.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

wring (plural wrings)

1. A powerful squeezing or twisting action.

   I grasped his hand and gave it a grateful wring.

   • 1697, John Vanbrugh, The Relapse, London: Samuel Briscoe, Act III, p. 45,^[29]

     Lo[ry]. […] I have been in a lamentable fright, Sir, ever since your Conscience had the Impudence to intrude into your Company.

     Y[oung] Fas[hion]. Be at peace; it will come there no more: My Brother has given it a wring by the Nose, and I have kick’d it down Stairs.

   • 1883, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London: Cassell, Part 3, Chapter 15, p. 123,^[30]

     He was still holding me by the wrist, and at that he gave it quite a wring.

   • 1919, Henry Blake Fuller, Bertram Cope’s Year, Chicago: Ralph Fletcher Seymour, Chapter 6, p. 63,^[31]

     I tried not to give his poor hand too much of a wring (another of my bad habits); but he took all I gave and even seemed to hang on for a little more.

2. (obsolete) Pain or distress.
   • 1637, Robert Monro, Monro His Expedition with the Worthy Scots Regiment, London, “The first Observation,” p. 3,^[32]

     When we have good dayes we slight them, when they are gone, we sinke under the wring of sorrow, for their losse;

References

• wring in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• wring in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Etymology 2

From Middle English wrynge (“press”), from Old English wringe.

Noun

wring

1. (archaic) A device for pressing or compressing, especially for cider.

   Synonym: press

   • 1891, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, London: James R. Osgood, Volume 2, Phase 3, Chapter 23, p. 32,^[36]

     They tossed and turned on their little beds, and the cheese-wring dripped monotonously downstairs.

Derived terms

• cider-wring
• wring-house

Dutch

Pronunciation

Verb

wring

1. first-person singular present indicative of wringen
2. imperative of wringen

Middle English

Verb

wring

1. Alternative form of wryngen

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English teren, from Old English teran (“to tear, lacerate”), from Proto-Germanic *teran? (“to tear, tear apart, rip”), from Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to tear, tear apart”). Cognate with Scots tere, teir, tair (“to rend, lacerate, wound, rip, tear out”), Dutch teren (“to eliminate, efface, live, survive by consumption”), German zehren (“to consume, misuse”), German zerren (“to tug, rip, tear”), Danish tære (“to consume”), Swedish tära (“to fret, consume, deplete, use up”), Icelandic tæra (“to clear, corrode”). Outside Germanic, cognate to Ancient Greek ???? (dér?, “to skin”), Albanian ther (“to slay, skin, pierce”). Doublet of tire.

Pronunciation 1

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: tâ, IPA^(key): /t??/
• (US) enPR: târ, IPA^(key): /t??/
• Rhymes: -??(?)
• Homophone: tare

Verb

tear (third-person singular simple present tears, present participle tearing, simple past tore, past participle torn or (now colloquial and nonstandard) tore)

2. (transitive) To rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart, whether intentionally or not; to destroy or separate.
   • 1886, Eleanor Marx-Aveling, translator, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, 1856, Part III Chapter XI,

     He suffered, poor man, at seeing her so badly dressed, with laceless boots, and the arm-holes of her pinafore torn down to the hips; for the charwoman took no care of her.

3. (transitive) To injure as if by pulling apart.

4. (transitive) To destroy or reduce abstract unity or coherence, such as social, political or emotional.

5. (transitive) To make (an opening) with force or energy.

6. (transitive, often with off or out) To remove by tearing.

7. (transitive, of structures, with down) To demolish

8. (intransitive) To become torn, especially accidentally.

9. (intransitive) To move or act with great speed, energy, or violence.
   • 2019, Lana Del Rey, "Hope Is a Dangerous Thing":

     I've been tearing around in my fucking nightgown. 24/7 Sylvia Plath.

10. (intransitive) To smash or enter something with great force.

Synonyms

• (break): rend, rip
• (remove by tearing): rip out, tear off, tear out

Related terms

Translations

Noun

tear (plural tears)

1. A hole or break caused by tearing.

   A small tear is easy to mend, if it is on the seam.

2. (slang) A rampage.

   to go on a tear

Derived terms

• on a tear
• wear and tear

Translations

Derived terms

• tearsheet

Etymology 2

From Middle English teer, ter, tere, tear, from Old English t?ar, t?r, tæhher, teagor, *teahor (“drop; tear; what is distilled from anything in drops, nectar”), from Proto-West Germanic *tah(h)r, from Proto-Germanic *tahr? (“tear”), from Proto-Indo-European *dá?ru- (“tears”).

Cognates include Old Norse tár (Danish tåre and Norwegian tåre), Old High German zahar (German Zähre), Gothic ???????????????? (tagr), Irish deoir and Latin lacrima.

Pronunciation 2

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: tî, IPA^(key): /t??/
• (General American) enPR: tîr, IPA^(key): /t??/
• Homophone: tier (layer or rank)

Noun

tear (plural tears)

2. A drop of clear, salty liquid produced from the eyes by crying or irritation.
3. Something in the form of a transparent drop of fluid matter; also, a solid, transparent, tear-shaped drop, as of some balsams or resins.
4. (glass manufacture) A partially vitrified bit of clay in glass.
5. That which causes or accompanies tears; a lament; a dirge.

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

tear (third-person singular simple present tears, present participle tearing, simple past and past participle teared)

1. (intransitive) To produce tears.

   Her eyes began to tear in the harsh wind.

Translations

Anagrams

• 'eart, Ater, Reta, aret, arte-, rate, tare, tera-

Galician

Etymology

Tea (“cloth”) +? -ar. Compare Portuguese tear and Spanish telar.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /te?a?/

Noun

tear m (plural teares)

1. loom

References

• “tear” in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega, SLI - ILGA 2006-2013.
• “tear” in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega. Santiago: ILG.
• “tear” in Álvarez, Rosario (coord.): Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués, Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega.

Middle English

Noun

tear

1. (Early Middle English) Alternative form of tere (“tear”)

Old English

Etymology

From Proto-West Germanic *tah(h)r, from Proto-Germanic *tahr?.

Germanic cognates include Old Frisian t?r, Old High German zahar, Old Norse tár, Gothic ???????????????? (tagr).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tæ???r/

Noun

t?ar m

1. tear (drop of liquid from the tear duct)

Declension

Derived terms

• t?eran

Descendants

• English: tear

Portuguese

Etymology

From teia +? -ar.

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /te.?a?/
• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /?tj.ar/
• Hyphenation: te?ar

Noun

tear m (plural teares)

1. loom (machine used to make cloth out of thread)
   • 1878, Joaquim Pedro Oliveira Martins, O hellenismo e a civilisação christan, publ. by the widow Bertand & Co., page 24.

West Frisian

Etymology

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

Noun

tear c (plural tearen, diminutive tearke)

1. fold
2. crease

Further reading

• “tear (I)”, in Wurdboek fan de Fryske taal (in Dutch), 2011