Tare or tear?
tare is a noun meaning “Any of the tufted grasses of the genus Lolium; darnel”; tear is a verb meaning “To rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling…”. Use tare as a noun and tear as a verb (tear is also a noun: “A hole or break caused by tearing”). They sound the same (/tɛə/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) tear is about 105 times as common as tare.
What is the difference between tare and tear?
| tare | tear | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | verb, noun |
| Meaning | Any of the tufted grasses of the genus Lolium; darnel The empty weight of a container; unladen weight To take into account the weight of the container, wrapping etc. in weighting merchandise | To rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart, whether intentionally or not; to destroy or separate To injure as if by pulling apart A hole or break caused by tearing |
| Example | But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way | He tore his coat on the nail |
| Forms | tares | tears, tearing, tore, torn tears, tearing, teared |
| Pronunciation | /tɛə/ /tɛ(ə)ɹ/ /teː/ | /tɛə/ /tɛː/ /tɛɹ/ |
| In writing | about once in every 5 million words | 22 times per million words |
Sources: tare and tear in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of tare and tear
tare
- 1
Any of the tufted grasses of the genus Lolium; darnel
- 2
The empty weight of a container; unladen weight
- 3
To take into account the weight of the container, wrapping etc. in weighting merchandise
- 4
Any of various dipping sauces served with Japanese food, typically based on soy sauce
- 5
Alternative form of tara (“Indian coin”)
- 6
radiotelephony clear-code word for the letter T
- 7
To set a zero value on an instrument (usually a balance) that discounts the starting point
tear
- 1
To rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart, whether intentionally or not; to destroy or separate
He tore his coat on the nail
- 2
A hole or break caused by tearing
A small tear is easy to mend, if it is on the seam
- 3
A drop of clear, salty liquid produced from the eyes by crying or irritation
Big tears streamed from Lisa's eyes, rolling down her cheeks
- 4
To produce tears
Her eyes began to tear in the harsh wind
- 5
To injure as if by pulling apart
He tore some muscles in a weight-lifting accident
- 6
slangA rampage
to go on a tear
- 7
Something in the form of a transparent drop of fluid matter; also, a solid, transparent, tear-shaped drop, as of some balsams or resins
- 8
To destroy or reduce abstract unity or coherence, such as social, political or emotional
He was torn by conflicting emotions
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, tare or tear?
tare appears about once in every 5 million words; tear 22 times per million words.
tare about once in every 5 million wordstear 22 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search tare vs tear?
“tare vs tear” is searched about 5,400 times a month on Google and 130 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“tear vs tare”, “tare or tear”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.