/ · 1894 Brewer’s · T · Tear (to rhyme with “snare”)
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
To tear Christ’s body. To use imprecations. The common oaths of mediæval times were by different parts of the Lord’s body, hence the preachers used to talk of “tearing God’s body by imprecations.”
“Her others been so greet and so dampnable.
That it is grisly for to hiere hëm swere.
Our blisful Lordës body thay to-tere.”
Chaucer: Canterbury Tales, 13,889.
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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.
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