- a drop of liquid that comes out of your eye when you cry
- A tear rolled down his face.
- I shed a tear (= cried a little) during the final episode of the show.
- in tears She left the room in tears (= crying).
- He suddenly burst into tears (= began to cry).
- tears of something He was crying tears of joy.
- The memory brought a tear to her eye (= made her cry).
- As he listened to the music, his eyes filled with tears.
- Their story will move you to tears (= make you cry).
- They reduced her to tears (= made her cry, especially by being cruel or unkind).
- Most of the audience was on the verge of tears (= very close to crying).
- I was close to tears as I told them the news.
- Desperately she fought back the tears (= tried not to cry).
- The tears welled up (= appeared and started to flow) in his eyes.
- We were in floods of tears (= crying a lot) at the end of the film.
Extra Examples- Emily wiped a tear from her eye.
- He could never read the letter without tears coming to his eyes.
- He turned away to hide his tears.
- Her cheeks were wet with tears.
- Her tears brimmed over and fell on her cheek.
- His eyes filled with sudden tears.
- His eyes were bright with unshed tears.
- I picked the little girl up and helped dry her tears.
- I saw it all through a mist of tears.
- I wiped a stray tear from my eye.
- I won't shed any tears when Frank retires.
- It brings tears to your eyes to see the children having such fun.
- It turned out to be a lot of tears over nothing.
- More than once I came near to tears.
- She broke down in tears in court.
- She felt tears pricking her eyelids.
- She ran out of the room, tears streaming from her eyes.
- She tried to smile through her tears.
- She wept silent tears when she heard his name.
- Tears blurred his vision.
- Tears stood in Oliver's eyes.
- Tears streaked her face.
- There were angry tears in Lily's eyes.
Word OriginOld English tēar, of Germanic origin; related to German Zähre, from an Indo-European root shared by Old Latin dacruma (Latin lacrima) and Greek dakru.
Idioms
See tear in the Oxford Advanced American DictionarySee tear in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic Englishblood, sweat and tears
- very hard work; a lot of effort
- The only way to succeed is through old-fashioned blood, sweat and tears.
bored stiff/silly | bored to death/tears | bored out of your mind
- (informal) extremely bored
- I remember being bored stiff during my entire time at school.
- She enjoys it. Everyone else is bored silly.
- He walked along, bored out of his mind.
- She was alone all day and bored to death.
Extra Examples- You must be bored stiff stuck at home all day.
- Personally, I was bored to death.
crocodile tears
- if somebody sheds (= cries) crocodile tears, they pretend to be sad about something, but they are not really sad at all
- Let’s have no more politicians shedding crocodile tears for the unemployed.
end in tears
- (British English, informal) if you say that something will end in tears, you are warning somebody that what they are doing will have an unhappy or unpleasant result
- After all that excitement the day was bound to end in tears.
- Needless to say, it ended in tears.
- He warned us it would all end in tears.
Check pronunciation:
tear2