Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. impressive, splendid, first-rate.

1660		Wandring Whore II 7: There’s a tearing Girl with Silver-lace upon her Petticoat a Quarters bredth.
1759–67		Sterne Tristram Shandy (1949) 475: Though you do get on at a tearing rate, yet you get on but uneasily to yourself at the same time.
c.1776		E. Bangs ‘The Yankee’s Return From Camp’ in Silber Songs of Independence (1973) 78: The flaming ribbons in his hat, / They looked so taring fine.
1804		T.G. Fessenden ‘Country Lovers’ Poems 102: Next Sabbath-day we will be tied, / And have a taring wedding.
1821		W. Scott Pirate (1822) III 270: Where will you find so tight a sea-boat [...] manned as she is with a set of tearing lads.
1837		Thackeray Yellowplush Papers in Works III (1898) 238: Bago kep a shop in Smithfield market, and drov a taring good trade in the hoil and Italian way.
1844		J.C. Neal Peter Ploddy and Other Oddities 151: A lady, with a bran-new, tearin’ fine bonnet.
1848		Thackeray Vanity Fair III 184: The gallant young Indian dandies [...] driving in tearing cabs.
1858		Huddersfield Chron. 29 May 3/1: ‘Be the power o’ yer grate gran’mother’s pot-stick — an’ many a tarin’ fine ride a had on ’t’’.
1876		‘Dan de Quille’ Big Bonanza (1947) 278: He killed a lot of oxen [...] and had a tearin’ barbecue.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Oct. 6/4: The fact was that the sermon was not a ‘tearing’ one, and when the first disappointment was over the miners gradually and unconsciously dropped into a friendly game of speculation on how long the entertainment would last.
1896		F.P. Dunne in Schaaf Mr Dooley’s Chicago (1977) 248: Ye’er a tearin’ big lunatic.
1900		G. Fitzmaurice ‘Peter Fagan’s Veiled Bride’ in Weekly Freeman 17 Mar. (1970) 14: ‘An’ a tarin’ night you’ll have too,’ sez I.

2. violent, rowdy or reckless in behaviour.

1661		Wandring Whore V 9: Mrs. Hewson at the furthest end of White-chappel, a tearing Ranter, who is never quiet.
1669		R. L’Estrange Fables of Anianus (1692) CCXLV 221: This Bull in the Fable, that ran Tearing Mad for the Pinching of a Mouse.
1673		Wycherley Gentleman Dancing-Master I ii: And we are not so much afraid to be taken up by the Watch, as by the taring midnight Ramblers or Houza-Women.
c.1674		Rochester ‘An Allusion to Horace’ in Works (1999) 73: Dryden in vain tryd this nice way of Witt, / For he to be a tearing Blade thought fitt.
1700		Farquhar Constant Couple Epilogue: The tearing spark [...] Breaks th’ drawer’s head, kicks her, and murders Bays.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 189: The devil take this tearing blade; / Zoons! what a gap the dog has made!
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England II 221: He could be a jumpin’, tarin’, rampagenous divil if he chose.
1854		Thackeray Newcomes I 46: Tearing young swell, that Lord Kew: tremendous wild fellow.
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 320: Well, she was in a tearing way — just a-trembling all over, she was so mad.
1909		R.A. Wason Happy Hawkins 29: He had one big tearin’ time of it and sluiced himself out with gin an’ dug up his old profanity.
1916		C.J. Dennis ‘Rabbits’ Moods of Ginger Mick 91: Gimme a ragin’, ’owlin’, tearin’ scrap, / Wiv room to swing me left, an’ feel it land.
1929		C. McKay Banjo 292: Ise so tearing mad and glad and crazy to meet you this-away again.
1940		in D. Sheridan (ed.) Wartime Women 98: ‘The instructress [...] was plainly in a tearing bad temper’.

3. of work, exhausting.

1923

J. Manchon Le Slang.