RENDING

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does rending mean? 

• RENDING (adjective)
  The adjective RENDING has 1 sense:

1. resembling a sound of violent tearing as of something ripped apart or lightning splitting a tree

  Familiarity information: RENDING used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• RENDING (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Resembling a sound of violent tearing as of something ripped apart or lightning splitting a tree

Synonyms:

rending; ripping; splitting

Context example:

heard a rending roar as the crowd surged forward

Similar:

cacophonic; cacophonous (having an unpleasant sound)

 Context examples 

The Martinez heeled over, sharply, and there was a crashing and rending of timber.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He plunged about in their very midst, tearing, rending, destroying, in constant and terrific motion which defied the arrows they discharged at him.

(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)

The other dived down the hole, and I heard the sound of rending cloth as Jones clutched at his skirts.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Elizabeth’s heart-rending eloquence failed to move the judges from their settled conviction in the criminality of the saintly sufferer.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Pondering over these heart-rending tidings, Catherine walked slowly upstairs.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

Without them, Mr. T. would indeed find it difficult to form the faintest conception of my heart-rending situation.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

We had turned away from the edge, and had penetrated about fifty yards of close brushwood, when there came a frightful rending crash from behind us.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in its desperation.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

On all sides there was a rending and crashing of wood and steel and canvas.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

And then suddenly, with a crashing and a rending, a thudding of giant feet and a panting of monster lungs the beast was upon me once more.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)