tear up

verb

tore up; torn up; tearing up; tears up

transitive verb

1

: to damage, remove, or effect an opening in

tore up the street to lay a new water main

2

: to perform or compete with great success on, in, or against

couples tearing up the dance floor

a batter who's tearing up the league

Examples of tear up in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

When the Elphaba to her Glinda began to touch on Thursday's encounter, Grande stared ahead, eventually tearing up in a state of visible emotion. —Ryan Coleman, Entertainment Weekly, 16 Nov. 2025

If the green chlorophyll was not there in the leaf to absorb all that energy, those photons would tear up the rest of the cell’s apparatus. —Paul Cappiello, Louisville Courier Journal, 14 Nov. 2025

Trump has spent the past year tearing up climate policies, seeking to strangle clean energy projects, pushing other countries to buy US oil and gas and withdrawing the US from the Paris climate agreement. —Laura Paddison, CNN Money, 12 Nov. 2025

Shepherd still tears up remembering the moment her daughter walked down the aisle. —Ashley Vega, PEOPLE, 10 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1620, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for tear up

• backup
• blowup
• breakup
• buildup
• checkup
• cleanup
• holdup
• hookup
• lineup
• lockup
• makeup
• markup