tear apart

phrasal verb

tore apart; torn apart; tearing apart; tears apart

1

: to completely destroy (something) by tearing it into pieces

I couldn't open the box nicely, so I just tore it apart.

—often used figuratively

The robbers tore apart the house looking for the money.

We tore the other team apart in yesterday's game.

We can't agree, and it's tearing our family apart.

2

: to criticize (someone or something) in a very harsh or angry way especially by describing weaknesses, flaws, etc.

The article tears apart the company's handling of the situation.

They tore him apart when he left.

Examples of tear apart in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Supply chains built over decades are being torn apart and reconstructed at great cost. —Mohammed Soliman, MSNBC Newsweek, 29 Apr. 2025

This team might be torn apart in the next few months and forgotten to history, a meaningless row in a basketball reference page. —Jared Weiss, New York Times, 29 Apr. 2025

But where Bukele is violent and vicious, Orbán is suave and subtle — systematically manipulating law to tear apart democracy while keeping its basic veneer intact. —Zack Beauchamp, Vox, 15 Apr. 2025

After the star died, asteroids could have been gravitationally deflected by any lingering gas giant planets into close-in orbits and torn apart. —Phil Plait, Scientific American, 28 Mar. 2025

Rhymes for tear apart

• counterpart
• art
• cart
• carte
• chart
• dart
• fart
• haart
• mart
• part
• smart
• start