rend one's garments

present singular third person rends one's garments · participle present rending one's garments · participle past rent one's garments · past rent one's garments · participle past rended one's garments · past rended one's garments

1. idiomaticTo fret or moan in an excessive or theatrical manner.

   Rosenblatt never sawed the air or rent his garments. When he began his essay, he knew how he meant to end it.

   1984, James J. Kilpatrick, The Writer’s Art, →ISBN

   3 more examples

   Yes, my friends, it is amusing to see these new dealers wring their hands and rend their garments on account of the distress of the great army of underprivileged in our country.

   1938 February 12, J. Will Taylor, “Address at Knocksville, Tenn.”, in Congressional Record: Appendix of the Third Session of the Seventy-Fifth Congress of the United States of America, volume 83, part 9, page 663

   I feel much the same as I watch the mining magnates wringing their hands, rending their garments and uttering up their piteous cries about the horrors of the resources super profits tax.

   2010 June 12, Mike Carlton, “Funny, they remember their epithets but not their manners”, in The Sydney Morning Herald

   Remember, after “The Decision,” when the people of Cleveland took to the streets, lost their ever-loving minds, rended their garments, cried into their pierogies, and burned their LeBron jerseys? And everyone was like LeBron will never be welcomed back here!

   2015 December 17, Devin Friedman, “J. R. Smith Is Always Open”, in GQ

2. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see rend, garment.