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

Those quakes put the pupfish habitat through a kind of washing machine, tearing up the algae that the fish eat, along with the fish’s eggs, and casting them into deeper waters where the fish can’t get to them. —Austin Corona, AZCentral.com, 2 Aug. 2025

Stilwell recalls immediately tearing up, but wanting to hide it from the mother and the boy so as not to freak them out. —Tabitha Parent, People.com, 1 Aug. 2025

Trump is tearing up that legacy by gutting Medicaid and food assistance for tens of thousands of New Yorkers. —Robert Zimmerman, New York Daily News, 27 July 2025

Mention her name in Kerrville, Texas, this week, and folks tend to do two things: tear up and smile. —Frank Morris, NPR, 12 July 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