See also: reissen

German edit

Alternative forms edit

Etymology edit

From Middle High German rizen, from Old High German rīzan (to scratch), from a conflation of two similar verbs:.

Cognate with English rat (to rip up, tear, rend), Dutch rijten (to rip up, tear, rend), Low German riten (to rip, tear, rend), Luxembourgish räissen (to scratch, tear, rip apart), Hunsrik reise, Saterland Frisian riete (to rip, tear).

Compare also Dutch wrijten (to argue, quarrel), English write (to inscribe, engrave, imprint), Swedish rita (to draw, design, delineate, model), Icelandic ríta (to cut, scratch, write).

Pronunciation edit

  • IPA(key): /ˈʁaɪ̯sn̩/, /ˈʁaɪ̯sən/
  • (file)
  • (file)
  • Hyphenation: rei‧ßen

Verb edit

reißen (class 1 strong, third-person singular present reißt, past tense riss, past participle gerissen, auxiliary haben or sein)

  1. (transitive) to tear (something); to pull (something) apart; to rip (something) [auxiliary haben]
    • 1918, Elisabeth von Heyking, “Aus dem Lande der Ostseeritter”, in Zwei Erzählungen, Phillipp Reclam jun., page 100:
      Es war als rängen beständig zwei Mächte um sie, als würde sie wehrlos von ihnen hin und her gerissen.
      It was as if two powers struggled over her continuously, as if she was torn to and fro by them defenselessly.
  2. (intransitive) to break; to become torn apart [auxiliary sein]
  3. (transitive) to snatch; to wrench; to yank; to drag; to tug; to pull on (something) [auxiliary haben]
  4. (transitive, of animals) to kill a prey animal [auxiliary haben]

Conjugation edit

Derived terms edit

Related terms edit

See also edit

Further reading edit