Definition of "rend"

If thou more murmur'st, I will rend an oak / And peg thee in his knotty entrails till / Thou hast howl'd away twelve winters.

1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii]

We are most vulnerable now to the messages of the new subcults, to the claims and counterclaims that rend the air.

1970, Alvin Toffler, Future Shock: Bantam Books, page 317

And when they lifted up their eyes afar off, and knew him not, they lifted up their voice, and wept; and they rent every one his mantle, and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], Job 2:12

For a time, there reigned, too, a sense of peculiar dread at this flitting apparition, as if it were treacherously beckoning us on and on, in order that the monster might turn round upon us, and rend us at last in the remotest and most savage seas.

1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 51, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, page 260

She'd been in a couple of minor car accidents herself, and witnessed a few others, and the rend of metal was unforgettable.

2002, John S. Anderson, A Daughter of Light, page xvi