1606. Day, Isle of Guls, Induction. I had rather heare two good jests, than a whole play of such tear-cat thunder-claps.
1611. Middleton, Roaring Girl. Tear-cat, a ruffian (Dram. Pers.).
1630. Taylor, Works [Nares]. The majesticall king of fishes . . . keepes his court in all this hurly-burly, not like a tyrannical tear-throat in open arms, but like wise Diogenes in a barrell.
1672. Wycherley, Love in a Wood [Routledge], 17, 41. [Oliphant, New Eng., ii. 107-8. We have seen a tearing groan about 1610; we read of tearing (boisterous) wits, and of tearing ladies; hence come our tearing spirits.]
1672. C. Cotton, Scarronides (1725), I. 9. A huffing Jack, a plund'ring Tearer, A vap'ring Scab, and a great Swearer.
1692. Lestrange, Fables. This bull that ran tearing mad for the pinching of a mouse.
1713. Addison, Cato, ii. 5. Gods! I could tear my beard to hear you talk.
1767. Sterne, Tristram Shandy, vii. 19. Though you do get on at a tearing rate, yet you get on but uneasily.
1819. Scott [Lockhart (1902), vi. 41], Letter to Southey. Such a letter as Kean wrote t'other day to a poor author, who . . . had, at least, the right to be treated as a gentleman by a copper-laced two-penny tearmouth.
1843. Dickens, Christmas Carols iii. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in.
1847-8. Thackeray, Vanity Fair, lx. Immense dandies . . . driving in TEARING Cabs.
1852. Bristed, Upper Ten Thousand, 17. He tears along behind him a sleigh.
1867. Brown, Capt. Smith and Poch. [Bartlett]. But the lofty chiefs fair daughter Told her Pa he hadn't oughter; And the way she tore around induced him to behave.
1869. Stowe, Oldtown, 525. Aunt Lois, she's ben . . . tearin' round 'nough to drive the house out o' the winders.
To tear one's seat, verb. phr. (tailors').—To attempt too much.
Tear-pump. To work the tear-pump, verb. phr. (common).—To weep; 'to turn on the water-works.'
Tease. On the tease, phr. (old).—Uneasy; fidgety.
1706. Centlivre, Basset-Table, iii. There's one upon the Teize already.
See Teaser.
Teaser, subs. (pugilists').—1. A disturbing blow. To tease (or TEAZE) = to flog (Grose and VAUX); TO NAP THE TEAZE = tO be flogged.
1840. Egan, Book of Sports. The latter planted a teaser on Sam's mouth, which produced the claret in streams.
2. (colloquial).—Anything difficult or perplexing.
1823. Bee, Dict. Turf s.v. Teaser—a hit on some queer point, as on the tip of the nose. Also, 1st. A summons to little chancery. 2nd. A talking fellow who haunts another. 3rd. An old horse belonging to a breeding stud—'though devoid of fun himself, he is the cause of it in others.
1857. Lawrence, Guy Livingstone, ix. The third is a teaser—an ugly black bullfinch with a ditch on the landing side.
Teaser of the catgut. Catgut-scraper.
Tea-voider, subs. phr. (old).—A chamber pot (Grose).
Tea-waggon, subs. phr. (obsolete nautical).—An East Indiaman.
1836. Dana, Two Years, xxxiv. Like a true English tea-wagon; and with a run like a sugar-box.
Teazle, subs. (venery).—The female pudendum: see Monosyllable.
