rend
/ɹɛnd/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.43 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A violent separation of parts.
Example Sentences
- "Powder rends a rock in blasting."
- "Lightning rends an oak."
- "If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak / And peg thee in his knotty entrails till / Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters."
- "a scream that rent the air"
- "We are most vulnerable now to the messages of the new subcults, to the claims and counterclaims that rend the air."
- "A time to rent, and a time to sow: a time to keepe silence, and a time to speake."
Etymology
From Middle English renden, from Old English rendan (“to rend, tear, cut, lacerate, cut down”), from Proto-West Germanic *(h)randijan (“to tear”), of uncertain origin. Believed by some to be the causative of Proto-Germanic *hrindaną (“to push”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱret-, *kret- (“to hit, beat”), which would make it related to Old English hrindan (“to thrust, push”). Cognate with Scots rent (“to rend, tear”), Old Frisian renda (“to tear”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: renden, rendan, *randijan, *hrindaną, *ḱret-