Other forms: ripped, ripping, rips
To rip is to tear something roughly and fast. You rip open a parcel, rip a page out of a notebook, hear your sleeve rip on a nail.
The noun is the tear it leaves: a rip down the back of a seat, a rip in the tent. Rip carries speed and roughness with it — paper and cloth rip, and so does anything pulled apart without care. The phrasal verbs do a lot of the work: rip something up, rip something out, and rip somebody off, which means to charge them far too much. A rip-off is a bad deal, let it rip means go at full speed, and a rip current is the fast pull of water that drags swimmers away from the beach. RIP on a gravestone is a different thing entirely: rest in peace.
1verbripTo tear something quickly and roughly.
“He ripped the envelope open before he had his coat off.”
2nounsplitA rough tear in cloth, paper or another thin material.
“There was a long rip in the knee of his jeans.”
3verbpullTo pull or move something away with sudden force.
“The storm ripped the aerial off the roof.”
4verbcopyTo copy music or video from a disc onto a computer.
“He spent the evening ripping his old CDs onto the laptop.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Middle English rippen came from an earlier ryppen, to pluck, and behind that Proto-Germanic *rupjaną. The old sense is the honest one: ripping is plucking done hard and fast — pulling something away with a snatch instead of cutting it.
Proto-Germanic
*rupjaną
Middle English
rippen
English, today
rip
Built from
From Middle English rippen, from earlier ryppen (“to pluck”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic rupjaną, ruppōną, intensive of raupijaną,Marlies Philippa et al., eds., Etymologisch Woordenboek van het Nederlands, A-
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA