Ausreißen

Ausreißen is a German verb that denotes two related actions: the physical tearing of something from its place, and the act of running away or escaping from confinement. The term appears in literal contexts (tearing a page from a book) as well as in figurative ones (breaking away from routines or an environment). The related nouns das Ausreißen (the act of tearing out or escaping) and der Ausreißer (the person who runs away) cover these senses.

Grammatically, ausreißen is a separable-prefix verb. In the present tense the prefix splits: ich reiße aus, du reißt aus, er reißt aus, wir reißen aus, ihr reisst aus, sie reißen aus. The simple past is riss aus; the past participle is ausgerissen, used with haben in the perfect: ich habe eine Seite aus dem Heft ausgerissen.

Usage examples include literal tearing, such as "Ich reiße eine Seite aus dem Heft" (I tear a page out of the notebook), and running away, such as "Sie ist aus dem Elternhaus ausgerissen" (She ran away from home). The term can also appear in metaphorical contexts to describe breaking away from constraints or a difficult situation.

Ausreißer is the corresponding noun for a person who runs away (der Ausreißer) and, in statistics, Ausreißer denotes an outlier in a data set. Related verbs include abreißen (to tear off) and ausbrechen (to break out).

See also: outlier, tear, run away.