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tear sheet

tear sheet

1 7.1
A page from a magazine or newspaper you can easily remove and keep as proof
  • noun
  • /tɛr ʃit/
  • Jargon
translation icon : hoja de recorte
  • I'm sure these photos resonate with young people, which is why advertisers have used RJ's work (judging by his tear sheets).
  • magazine tear sheet

And the cork board above my bed started to become a collage of tear sheets from Swimming World magazine.

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Examples

  • For the project, we used tear sheets from old newspapers as reference material.

  • Send tear sheets only. Include return postage and labels.

    Academic text (2007)
  • And I think Michael, who does the press kept like all the press books, Tear sheets I think is what we used to call them tear sheets.

  • For example, the photojournalist should seek out local media assignments, enough to develop credits and tear sheets.

    Blog text (8)
  • And the cork board above my bed started to become a collage of tear sheets from Swimming World magazine.

  • It is important at first to just get published and have some tear sheets to show potential buyers one rung up the publishing ladder.

    Academic text (1994)
  • Send tear sheets showing date and photo credit (no original photographic prints), along with form, fee, and labels, to Director Mary Ann Rhoda, FPSA, no later than April 1, 2009.

    Academic text (2009)
  • The designer keeps a folder of tear sheets from various magazines for inspiration.

  • She clipped out tear sheets of her favorite recipes and organized them in a binder.

Synonyms

page
vstear sheet
1.0

One side of a sheet in a book, newspaper, or magazine

is made to be removed easily for reference or proof of publication
leaf
vstear sheet
38 7.7

A single sheet of paper in a book or manuscript

is prepared to be detached for reference or evidence of being published

Surface Forms

tear sheet singular
tear sheets plural

Morphology

tear + sheet

The meaning 'a page designed to be removed' is directly inferable from combining 'tear' (the action or result of tearing) with 'sheet' — i.e. a sheet intended to be torn off. Although it requires a small sense shift between noun/verb uses of 'tear', the compositional logic is straightforward and follows a common noun–noun descriptive pattern, so a B1 learner who knows both words will likely understand it.

Etymology

Tear sheet comes from a real magazine page you could tear out: the word tear means a rip and sheet means a single page. People kept these torn pages as 'proof' that an ad or article appeared or as an example to use later, so today a tear sheet means a page made to be removed and kept as evidence or inspiration.