"tear-cat" meaning in English

See tear-cat in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: tear-cats [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} tear-cat (plural tear-cats)
  1. (obsolete, acting) An overactor. Tags: obsolete Synonyms: ham, hambone, hamfatter, overactor Related terms: tear a cat

Inflected forms

{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tear-cats",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "tear-cat (plural tear-cats)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English exocentric verb-noun compounds",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Acting",
          "orig": "en:Acting",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "People",
          "orig": "en:People",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              91,
              99
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1606, John Day, The Isle of Gulls, in White, Thomas, editor, The Old English Drama, volume 4, published 1830, Induction, page 15:",
          "text": "Fie upon't, mere fustian; I had rather hear two good bawdy jests then a whole play of such tear-cat thunder-claps.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              46,
              54
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1611, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, The Roaring Girl, act 5, scene 1:",
          "text": "I am cal'd by those that have seen my valour, Tear-Cat.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An overactor."
      ],
      "id": "en-tear-cat-en-noun-kT9nhQUJ",
      "links": [
        [
          "acting",
          "acting#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "overactor",
          "overactor"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete, acting) An overactor."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "tear a cat"
        }
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "ham"
        },
        {
          "word": "hambone"
        },
        {
          "word": "hamfatter"
        },
        {
          "word": "overactor"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "acting",
        "broadcasting",
        "entertainment",
        "film",
        "lifestyle",
        "media",
        "television",
        "theater"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "tear-cat"
}
{
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "tear-cats",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "tear-cat (plural tear-cats)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "tear a cat"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English exocentric verb-noun compounds",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English terms with obsolete senses",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries",
        "en:Acting",
        "en:People"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              91,
              99
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1606, John Day, The Isle of Gulls, in White, Thomas, editor, The Old English Drama, volume 4, published 1830, Induction, page 15:",
          "text": "Fie upon't, mere fustian; I had rather hear two good bawdy jests then a whole play of such tear-cat thunder-claps.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "bold_text_offsets": [
            [
              46,
              54
            ]
          ],
          "ref": "1611, Thomas Middleton, Thomas Dekker, The Roaring Girl, act 5, scene 1:",
          "text": "I am cal'd by those that have seen my valour, Tear-Cat.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An overactor."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "acting",
          "acting#Noun"
        ],
        [
          "overactor",
          "overactor"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(obsolete, acting) An overactor."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "acting",
        "broadcasting",
        "entertainment",
        "film",
        "lifestyle",
        "media",
        "television",
        "theater"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "ham"
    },
    {
      "word": "hambone"
    },
    {
      "word": "hamfatter"
    },
    {
      "word": "overactor"
    }
  ],
  "word": "tear-cat"
}

Download raw JSONL data for tear-cat meaning in English (1.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-06-18 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-06-01 using wiktextract (074e7de and f1c2b61). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.