Tear has two main meanings(To cry and to rip) and tare means the weight of packaging on a product.
Tear Meaning 1(Crying)
A tear(/tɪə/) is a drop of water that comes from your eye. When we cry, we have tears in our eyes. We usually cry when we feel emotional and can’t express ourselves the way that we want to.
“Tear” is usually used as a noun so the plural is “tears”. It is an uncountable noun and therefore the quantity is not usually expressed.
You have some tears in your eyes.
Dry the tears from your eyes.
Tear can also be used as a verb when you have tears in your eyes due to wind. The phrasal verb “tear up” is also starting to become more and more common and means that you are in the process of beginning to cry.
Don’t tear up on me now!
Tear Meaning 2(Rip)
To tear/tɛː/ something means to break something with force from one end to the other. The material that you tear is usually something thin like paper. The verb “to rip” is a synonym.
Why don’t you tear up the contract?
My jeans tore last night at the disco.
Tear also has the meaning of doing something very fast and well.
He tore up the road at 110 miles per hour.
He is tearing up the course.
Go on the tear meaning
In Ireland, “to go on the tear” means to have a crazy night and drink a lot.
We went on the tear last night and didn’t get home until 5 am.
Tears meaning
Tears can either be the plural of one teardrop or the third person singular of the verb “to tear”
Your tears speak louder than words.
He tears up all the books in the house.
Tear Pronunciation
The two main meanings of tear are spelled the same but are pronounced differently. These words are called homophones in English.
You can hear the two pronunciations in the video below.
Tare meaning and use
Tare is a much less common word in English than “tear”
A Tare is an allowance made for the weight of the packaging in order to determine the net weight of goods.
Basically, when you are weighing a product, you might not want to include the packaging(possibly for tax reasons) so total weight – tare= weight of goods.
The pronunciation of tare is the same as “tear” when the meaning is “to rip” and the plural is “tares”.
Tier meaning(as in layers)
A “tier” can mean layers or levels of something. The pronunciation is almost the same as “tear” (to cry)
The top-tier is the best paid.
There are different tiers. You need to pay more if you want to sit closer to the field.
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