tear-throat
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Noun
[edit]tear-throat (plural tear-throats)
- (obsolete) A blustering, boisterous person.
- 1630, John Taylor, Jack a Lent; republished in Works of John Taylor, the Water-Poet, London: Reeves and Turner, 1876, page 15:
- The majestical king of fishes, heroical most magnificent Herring, armed with white and red, keeps his court in all this hurly-burly, not like a tyrannical tear-throat in open arms, but like wise Diogenes in a barrel […]
- (obsolete, acting) An overactor.
Related terms
[edit]Adjective
[edit]tear-throat (comparative more tear-throat, superlative most tear-throat)
- (obsolete) Vociferous.
- 1617, John Taylor, Taylor's Travels; republished in Works of John Taylor, the Water-Poet, London: Reeves and Turner, 1876, pages 8–9:
- […] upon which was erected the true picture of a most unmatchable Hangman […] for this tear-throat termagant is a fellow in folio, a commander of such great command, and of such greatness to command, that I never saw any that in that respect could countermand him […]
- 2013, Eleanor Collins, “Old Repertory, New Theatre”, in Martin Procházka, Andreas Höfele, Hanna Scolnicov, Michael Dobson, editors, Proceedings of the Ninth World Shakespeare Congress, →ISBN, page 151:
- The cheap entertainment of the “tear-throat” Red Bull plays, with their battles, clowns, and fireworks, has been sharply contrasted with the innovative, “literary” dramatic styles of the hall-playhouses, which favored witplay over swordplay […]
- (obsolete) Amateurish; characterized by overacting.
- 2000, Robert M. Gorrell, Murder at the Rose, →ISBN:
- Or was he just going to expose the tear-throat acting in the Rose?
Synonyms
[edit]- (vociferous): See also Thesaurus:noisy
- (characterized by overacting): hammy
References
[edit]- John S[tephen] Farmer; W[illiam] E[rnest] Henley, compilers (1904) “tear-throat”, in Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present. […], volume VII, [London: […] Neill and Co.] […], →OCLC, page 89.