Meaning & use
tear us apart
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Meanings
phraseidiom
To destroy the closeness or unity between people, especially a couple or a group.
Grammar: The pronoun changes with the people: tear them apart, tear the family apart. It takes an object, so it is not used without one.
Patterns
- tear someone apart
- tear a group/couple apart
- tear someone apart from someone
Long working hours and constant travel finally tore us apart.
Her family's disapproval nearly tore us apart in the first year of our marriage.
He said the argument over money had torn us apart more than any other problem.
phraseidiominformal
To make someone feel extremely upset or to criticize someone very severely.
Grammar: Here the object is usually a person and the meaning is emotional or critical, not about relationships breaking.
Patterns
- tear someone apart
- tear someone apart in public
The reviewers tore us apart, but the audience loved the show.
Seeing the old photographs tore me apart.
Common combinations
- tear a couple apart
- Friends and relatives can tear a couple apart without meaning to.
- tear a family apart
- The long court case tore the family apart.
- nearly tear us apart
- That difficult year nearly tore us apart.
- tear someone apart emotionally
- The separation tore him apart emotionally.
- what tore us apart
- We talked honestly about what tore us apart.
Synonyms and how they differ
- drive apart
- Focuses on slowly pushing people away from each other rather than destroying the bond in one blow.
- divide
- More neutral and often used of groups or countries; it does not suggest the emotional pain that tear apart does.
- break up
- Usually means a couple ends the relationship themselves; tear apart suggests an outside force doing the damage.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: tear us apart or tear?
tear us apart vs tear
The word tear has two pronunciations and meanings: /teər/ (rip) and /tɪər/ (a drop from the eye). In this phrase it is always the 'rip' word.
Practice
Choose the sentence that uses 'tear us apart' correctly.
Choose one answer.
'Tear us apart' is a fixed phrase meaning to destroy a relationship, so the move threatening the relationship fits. Options 1 and 3 use tear with the literal meaning of ripping paper or of crying, and option 4 wrongly puts the object of the literal verb after the phrase.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “tear us apart”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.