rear
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɹɪ(ə)ɹ/
ipa: /ɹɪə̯/
rhymes: -ɪə(ɹ)
Forms: form: rears
form: rearing
form: reared
form: reared
form: reer
form: rere
form: rare
Etymology: From Middle English reren (“to raise”), from Old English rǣran (“to raise, set upright, promote, exalt, begin, create, give rise to, excite, rouse, arouse, stir up”), from Proto-West Germanic *raiʀijan, from Proto-Germanic *raizijaną, *raisijaną (“to cause to rise, raise”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁rey- (“to lift oneself, rise”).
Cognate with Scots rere (“to construct, build, rear”), Icelandic reisa (“to raise”), Gothic 𐍂𐌰𐌹𐍃𐌾𐌰𐌽 (raisjan, “to cause to rise, lift up, establish”), German reisen (“to travel”, literally “to rear up and depart”); and a doublet of raise. More at rise.
Related to rise and raise, which is used for several of its now archaic or obsolete senses and for some of its senses that are currently more common in other dialects of English.
Senses: examples: text: He wants a father to protect his youth, and rear him up to virtue.
ref: 1694, Thomas Southerne, Isabella: Or The Fatal Marriage:
glosses: To bring up to maturity, as offspring; to educate; to instruct; to foster.
examples: text: The family has been rearing cattle for 200 years.
glosses: To breed and raise.
raw_tags: said of people towards animals
examples: text: The horse was shocked, and thus reared.
glosses: To rise up on the hind legs.
glosses: To get angry.
raw_tags: with "up"
glosses: To rise high above, tower above.
examples: text: Poverty reared its ugly head. (appeared, started, began to have an effect)
text: The monster slowly reared its head.
text: In adoration at his feet I fell Submiss; he reared me.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: Mine [shall be] the first hand to rear her banner.
ref: 1835, Lord Lytton, Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes:
glosses: To raise physically or metaphorically; to lift up; to cause to rise, to elevate.
examples: text: to rear defenses or houses
text: to rear one government on the ruins of another.
text: One reared a font of stone.
ref: 1847, Alfred Tennyson, “Prologue”, in The Princess: A Medley, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC:
glosses: To construct by building; to set up
examples: text: It reareth our hearts from vain thoughts.
ref: 1700, Isaac Barrow, Of Industry...:
glosses: To raise spiritually; to lift up; to elevate morally.
examples: text: And hauing her from Trompart lightly reard, / Vpon his Courser set the louely lode,
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 19:
glosses: To lift and take up.
examples: text: And seeks the tusky boar to rear.
ref: 1684, John Dryden, The Second Epode of Horace:
glosses: To rouse; to strip up.
Synonyms: sense: rise up on the hind legs
word: prance
Derived terms: childrearing
raring
rearing bit
rear one's head
rear one's ugly head
rear up