to bear away
- phrasal verb
- /bɛr əˈweɪ/
- He managed to bear away all the furniture before the storm hit.
Examples
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During the fire, the firefighters bear away trapped residents to safety.
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She felt relieved to bear away her anxiety by talking to a friend.
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The young men from town he has hired to bear away his goods lift the boxes into the back of the wagon, then stand patting the horse's nose.
Fiction book (1999)
Synonyms
To remove something from a place or reduce something important, for example a right
To move people or things away, sometimes because of strong feeling
To make someone or something leave a place
To take a person to another place or to move someone's feelings suddenly
To carry someone or something away from a place to another
Antonyms
How Removed
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to carry or remove ... to another location or condition' is directly and compositionally derived from 'bear' (to carry) plus the particle 'away' (movement/transfer to another place or state). The verb + away pattern is a regular, cross-linguistically common construction indicating removal or transfer, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent meanings should be able to infer this MWE's meaning despite its slightly formal register.
Etymology
The verb bear away comes from a simple picture: bear means 'carry' and away means 'to another place', so a river, wind, or a strong feeling can carry someone away. That's why bear away now means 'to carry or take someone or something to a new place or change how they feel'.