"tear a cat" meaning in English

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tears a cat",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tearing a cat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tore a cat",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "torn a cat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "tear<,,tore,torn> a cat"
      },
      "expansion": "tear a cat (third-person singular simple present tears a cat, present participle tearing a cat, simple past tore a cat, past participle torn a cat)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English predicates",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Acting",
          "orig": "en:Acting",
          "parents": [
            "Art",
            "Culture",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 1, scene 2",
          "text": "Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant. I could play / Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "c. 1599, John Marston, Histriomastix, act 5, scene 1, page [53]",
          "text": "Sirha is this you would rend and teare the Cat / Upon a Stage, and now march like drown'd rat?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1835, George Daniel, “The Conversazione”, in The Modern Dunciad, William Pickering, page 224",
          "text": "Till, in his periwig combustion / Will. Shakespeare sounds like Irish fustian, / In which Macready tears a cat, / And Shiel, the patriot, writes so pat;",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1970, Alfred Rossi, Minneapolis Rehearsals: Tyrone Guthrie Directs Hamlet, University of California Press, page 21",
          "text": "From this performance there is no doubt in anyone's mind that Hamlet is an amateur actor having a fling at histrionics, or as Guthrie might say, \"tearing a cat.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To overact; to violently rant and rave on stage."
      ],
      "id": "en-tear_a_cat-en-verb-HQkDF3i0",
      "links": [
        [
          "acting",
          "acting#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "overact",
          "overact"
        ],
        [
          "rant",
          "rant"
        ],
        [
          "rave",
          "rave"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete, idiomatic, acting) To overact; to violently rant and rave on stage."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "tear-cat"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "chew the scenery"
        },
        {
          "word": "ham"
        },
        {
          "word": "ham it up"
        },
        {
          "word": "melodramatize"
        },
        {
          "word": "overact"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "obsolete"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "acting",
        "broadcasting",
        "entertainment",
        "film",
        "lifestyle",
        "media",
        "television",
        "theater"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "tear a cat"
}

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tears a cat",
      "tags": [
        "present",
        "singular",
        "third-person"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tearing a cat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "present"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "tore a cat",
      "tags": [
        "past"
      ]
    },
    {
      "form": "torn a cat",
      "tags": [
        "participle",
        "past"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "tear<,,tore,torn> a cat"
      },
      "expansion": "tear a cat (third-person singular simple present tears a cat, present participle tearing a cat, simple past tore a cat, past participle torn a cat)",
      "name": "en-verb"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "verb",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "tear-cat"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
        "English idioms",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English predicates",
        "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
        "English terms with obsolete senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "English verbs",
        "en:Acting"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "c. 1595–1596, William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream, act 1, scene 2",
          "text": "Yet my chief humour is for a tyrant. I could play / Ercles rarely, or a part to tear a cat in, to make all split.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "c. 1599, John Marston, Histriomastix, act 5, scene 1, page [53]",
          "text": "Sirha is this you would rend and teare the Cat / Upon a Stage, and now march like drown'd rat?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1835, George Daniel, “The Conversazione”, in The Modern Dunciad, William Pickering, page 224",
          "text": "Till, in his periwig combustion / Will. Shakespeare sounds like Irish fustian, / In which Macready tears a cat, / And Shiel, the patriot, writes so pat;",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1970, Alfred Rossi, Minneapolis Rehearsals: Tyrone Guthrie Directs Hamlet, University of California Press, page 21",
          "text": "From this performance there is no doubt in anyone's mind that Hamlet is an amateur actor having a fling at histrionics, or as Guthrie might say, \"tearing a cat.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To overact; to violently rant and rave on stage."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "acting",
          "acting#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "overact",
          "overact"
        ],
        [
          "rant",
          "rant"
        ],
        [
          "rave",
          "rave"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete, idiomatic, acting) To overact; to violently rant and rave on stage."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic",
        "obsolete"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "acting",
        "broadcasting",
        "entertainment",
        "film",
        "lifestyle",
        "media",
        "television",
        "theater"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "chew the scenery"
    },
    {
      "word": "ham"
    },
    {
      "word": "ham it up"
    },
    {
      "word": "melodramatize"
    },
    {
      "word": "overact"
    }
  ],
  "word": "tear a cat"
}