rend

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English renden,^[2][3][4][5] inherited from Old English rendan (“to tear, cut”),^{[6][7][2][3][8]} also hrendan,^[4][6] from Proto-West Germanic *(h)randijan (“to tear”),^[1] written *rendan by Etymonline^[4] and Proto-Germanic *randijanan by Barnhart.^[9] It is cognate with Old Frisian renda (“to tear, cut, break”), also randa,^[10][4][5] and related to Middle Low German rende (“anything broken”).^{[4][11][7][5]} Most dictionaries think it probably related to rind,^{[4][9][5][12]} and the OED suggests a different ablaut grade of the same Germanic base, while calling the further etymology uncertain.^[10] Outside Germanic, Sanskrit रन्ध्र (randhra, “split, opening”) has been compared,^[13][5][7] a link that Partridge and Ayto hold only as possible;^[12][14] Weekley knew of no other cognates.^[15] Wiktionary reports the view that it is the causative of Proto-Germanic *hrindaną (“to push”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱret- (“to hit, beat”).^[1] The past form rent shows an early devoicing of the final consonant, as in the past forms of bend and send.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

To tear or cut something away: in the Old English glosses of the Gospels, where rendun and its Lindisfarne variant render the Latin of Mark 11:8 for the people cutting branches from trees.^[6][10] Barnhart dates the Old English word to about 950, and finds renden probably before 1200, in Layamon and the Ancrene Riwle.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The core sense, to pull or tear by force, ran through Middle English in many uses.^[10][2] From about 1225 it meant to tear one's clothes or hair in rage or grief,^[10][2] a gesture Wiktionary connects with the biblical and Jewish practice of tearing clothes in mourning,^[1] and to wound or tear flesh.^[10] The verb was also used intransitively from about 1275, in Layamon, for splitting apart, and transitively from about 1300 for tearing to pieces.^[10] Its figurative uses followed: before 1333, of causing great emotional pain, chiefly to the heart;^[10] before 1398, in Trevisa, of a loud noise piercing the air;^[10][16] from 1610, in Donne, of dividing a country or society into factions.^[10][11] Johnson (1755) defined it as to tear with violence, to lacerate, quoting Shakespeare's Coriolanus.^[17] The Shorter Oxford now labels the verb archaic and literary.^[11] The noun, a tear or split, is recorded from 1581,^[10] though Etymonline finds it only in the 1660s and notes that rent (1530s) was the more usual noun.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 950 – Old English rendan, to tear or cut away.^[9][10][6]
• c. 1225 – to tear one's clothes or hair; to wound or lacerate.^[10][2]
• c. 1275 – intransitive, to split apart.^[10]
• c. 1300 – to tear to pieces, also rend asunder.^[10]
• before 1333 – to cause great emotional pain.^[10]
• before 1398 – of a sound, to pierce the air.^[10]
• 1581 – noun, a tear or split.^[10]
• 1610 – to divide a country or society into factions.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To tear or split apart by force; to rip: The gale rent the sail in two.^[16][13][10]
2. To pull something violently away from a person or place; to wrench: The flood rent the fence from its posts.^[13][10][11]
3. To tear one's clothes or hair, especially in rage or grief.^[16][10][11]
4. Of a noise or cry, to pierce the air or the silence: A scream rent the night.^[16][10]
5. To cause great pain to the heart or conscience: The news rent her heart.^[16][10]
6. To divide a country or group into factions.^[10][11]

Noun

1. A tear or split.^[10][11][4]
2. (obsolete, 1704–1850) In ships, a split in the timber.^[10][11]

Word family

• rendible
• heart-rending

Related words

• rent
• rind

Usage notes

The past tense and past participle are rent, less often rended.^[13][11] The dialect verb rend, to strip off bark, in Sussex, Hampshire, Devon and Cornwall, belongs with the dialect verb rind.^[18] A use of rend as an equivalent of render, also with down and out, recorded from 1558, has a separate source in the OED: either French or a shortening of that verb.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
13. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
14. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)