1The back part of something, especially a building or vehicle.

1. 1.1 The space or position at the back of something or someone.
   the field at the rear of the church

   Example sentencesExamples

   • To mitigate risk to the tank, the infantry would move to the tank's flank to prevent the enemy from mounting from the rear.
   • There is a lawn and paved patio area to the rear of the conservatory.
   • Another feature of the bus, with a maximum speed of 40 kmph, is that it has sensors that tell the driver of vehicles approaching from the rear.
   • Several vehicles were lined up along the rear of the small parking lot, out of direct sight of the road.
   • A sculpture terrace in the rear completes the exhibition space.
   • There are front and rear gardens and a paved patio area to the rear.
   • Much of what I recall was once a large playground and green area to the rear of the site is now home to a small village of prefab classrooms.
   • With that he had walked over to the side of the court yard just to the rear of the firing squad.
   • Land which was previously an area of open space at the rear of homes in Thresher Rise and Queenborough Lane in Great Notley, is set to be used to provide up to seven allotments.
   • There is off-street parking and a paved patio area to the rear, and the gardens are planted with lawns and rose bushes.
   • The front of the house includes a lawn and a drive with space to park two cars; to the rear is a patio garden with shrubs, plants and a block-built shed.
   • The ground falls away at the rear of the property.
   • They moved into the churchyard to get out of the light and he led her around to a paved area at the rear of the church.
   • Number 137 is held on a 235-year lease dating from 1934 and there are four car parking spaces to the rear.
   • The college argues that the playing field, at the rear of the site, has not been used for recreational or sporting use by either the college or any other organisation for years.
   • The exterior contains a spacious garden to the rear with a patio area and a boiler house.
   • He said that a new application was received by City of York Council yesterday to transform a derelict car park at the rear of the property to shopping space.
   • There is off-street parking for residents in a private car parking area to the rear of the development.
   • Behind their bay windows are elegant drawing rooms and to the rear there is sufficient space to create generous kitchens and living areas.
   • In total the scheme provides 160 square metres of retail floorspace and 14 car parking spaces at the rear of the apartments.

   Synonyms

   back, back part, hind part, back end, other end

   end, tail end, rear end, back end, tail
2. 1.2 The hindmost part of an army, fleet, or line of people.
   two policemen at the rear fell out of the formation

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Coordination must be made with the brigade reconnaissance team, companies to the rear, and adjacent units.
   • He didn't direct his regiment from a safer place to the rear.
   • A gap opened up between the Allied armies as Clark moved away from the decisive point - closing the rear of the German Army.
   • We were stunned when a messenger Jeep drove me to the rear to hear the cease-fire order read aloud.
   • The execution of special operations in the enemy rear also falls within their ambit.
   • On the battlefields we face, there are no front lines and no rear areas; there are no secure garrisons or convoys.
   • Ships to the rear of the line, unaware of the speed reduction, closed up in an irregular formation.
   • Hundreds of trucks are aimlessly hanging around the army rear.
   • From his position behind the front lines, he could see a stream of wounded men moving in a line to the rear.
   • Either transfer all of your files on a laptop or download them on disks; if you do not, you will be having someone from the rear send the files anyway.
   • Frontal thrusts will be combined with an active front in the enemy rear created by landed groups.
   • The way to the rear of the Army of Northern Virginia was open.
   • After fighting for another 30 hours with the wound, he finally went to the rear, where he was treated for internal injuries.
   • German planners knew that Antwerp must be taken to safeguard the right rear of their armies swinging down into France, and initially allocated five reserve corps to the task.
   • His brigade protected the rear of Sherman's army during the Atlanta Campaign, and was part of the Tennessee Campaign at the end of 1864.
   • A tremendous explosion thundered from the rear of the formation.
   • Running away from the body and back to the battle, Henry takes up with the procession of wounded men trudging to the army's rear for care.
   • He recalled how York had picked off the soldiers to the rear, so that the lead soldiers didn't recognise the severity of the threat their enemy posed.
   • He often made all-night runs to the rear for parts and tires.
   • Major General John Gregg covered the right and rear of the Army of the Potomac.

   Synonyms

   end, tail end, rear end, back end, tail
3. 1.3informal A person's buttocks.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • I could imagine what it would be like to have that dog bolling his way down the mall hallway, sniffing people's rears and grabbing bags out of unsuspecting hands.
   • Pull one of your feet up to your rear, and turn the foot outwards away from the body.
   • If our folks sit on their rears, the Republicans are better organized in Pennsylvania than they've ever been.
   • Then, one after the other, they hit the same tiny protrusion which caused their rears to topple over their fronts.
   • We're not getting off our rears and just walking places.
   • Be sure to quickly bring your heels up to your rear in a tight tuck.
   • Now Macy's in New York is endorsing big bottoms by adding an extra 2.5in to their dummies' rears.
   • If developers rampantly fail to produce good software, but the company exceeds earnings estimates anyway, how many of those rears will be actually on the line?
   • Good thing we'll burn it all off by sitting on our rears for another three days.
   • These athletes have such great-looking rears because their sport effectively targets the gluteal muscles.

   Synonyms

   buttocks, backside, behind, rear end, rump, seat, haunches, hindquarters, cheeks

   British bottom

   French derrière

   German Sitzfleisch

   informal sit-upon, stern, BTM, tochus, rusty dusty

   British informal bum, botty, prat, jacksie

   Scottish informal bahookie

   North American informal butt, fanny, tush, tushie, tail, duff, buns, booty, caboose, heinie, patootie, keister, tuchis, bazoo, bippy

   West Indian informal batty, rass

   humorous posterior, fundament

   British vulgar slang arse, clunge

   North American vulgar slang ass

   technical nates

attributive At the back.

1with object Bring up and care for (a child) until they are fully grown.

1. 1.1 (of an animal) care for (its young) until they are fully grown.
   Example sentencesExamples

   • Animals that rear their young might educate their young in survival abilities.
   • It likes the stables and barns to nest in and rear its young.
   • Millions of people have followed the private lives of the Lakes osprey and watched as the five young have been successfully reared in the nest over the last four years.
   • Since making their home at Bassenthwaite in 2001, the first ospreys to do so for 150 years, the ospreys have successfully reared four young.
   • Modern farming practices that involve growing trees and rearing animals and other forms of agricultural practices at the same time should be encouraged.
   • Other studies even showed that nestlings fed by people were less afraid of new things until age 6 months than were birds reared by their parents.
   • There is no support for the idea that female larks work harder during the chick rearing period compared with the incubation period.
   • In socially monogamous species, extrapair males usually do not assist females rearing the young or provide other direct benefits to the female.
   • Each year, just before spring, flocks of fig birds descend on Grafton to build their nests & rear their young.
   • Each year, the number of breeding pairs and successfully reared young will be compared to previous years' numbers.
   • August may be high summer for us, but for wasps the year is already in decline; it is when they switch from food high in protein, necessary for rearing their young, to sugary foods.
   • ‘He wasn't reared by the dogs as such, he lived with them in a cave,’ she said.
   • They rear their young in stick nests or ‘dreys’, are less active in winter, and do not hibernate or bury nuts as winter store.
   • Some tropical bird species rear their young near wasp nests and depend on the insects to repel predators.
   • The hen's efforts to carry on the task of rearing her young in such circumstances were in vain and they all died.
   • For the third year running a mistle thrush has chosen an amber traffic light in Salford to rear her young.
   • This study was conducted during the chick rearing period of both species.
   • The real giveaway is the female's hidden pouch, albeit backward opening, for rearing its young.
   • Pembroke river is described as a refuge for wildlife. Thousands of birds feed on the mud flats during the winter and in the summer shell duck nest and rear their young here.
   • Calendar buyers will learn that it is the third time in 150 years that wild osprey have nested and reared young at Bassenthwaite Lake.
2. 1.2 Breed and raise (animals)
   the calves are reared for beef

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Fish farms were established during Roman times when they built ‘vivaria’, areas where spawn and young fish were reared for the table.
   • The cubs are reared until they are about six months old and then slaughtered.
   • A high percentage of Welsh turkey producers are concentrated in Pembrokeshire - a county recognised nationally as an important poultry rearing region.
   • These larvae were reared separately until eclosion and both classes were viable.
   • Firstly, most pork is produced from pigs reared indoors and some would have been frozen.
   • A good, well-organised calf rearing system should be a priority for any dairy farmer, and this does not mean that you go and put up an expensive calf house.
   • But in 1996, a Swiss animal behaviourist noticed that mice and rats reared this way might actually be decidedly abnormal.
   • As it is sometimes difficult to rear young calves it is a good thing to keep them clean and dry., whitewashing the calf hulls two or three times during the winter.
   • By May, weighing-in at around 40 lb, the lamb rearing cycle comes to an end.
   • Calf rearing systems must aim to produce rapid growth rates matched by proper rumen development.
   • The firm rears chickens from just days old and processes them through to cooked finished products.
   • Young fish were also reared in hatchery tanks and released as smolts, the stage at which salmon head to sea before traveling to northerly feeding grounds.
   • In the southern Karas region, which is cattle rearing area, Kangowa said grazing will be so poor that the government is encouraging farmers to sell their livestock.
   • Her business is now concentrated at Orielton Mill, Hundleton, where she plans to rear young trout to sell on to other fish farmers.
   • Cattle rearing remains part of prairie Cajun life today, but the spread of agriculture, especially rice, has reduced both its economic importance and much of its flamboyant ways.
   • Hugh describes growing vegetables and rearing animals, as well as cooking them, in an unpretentious manner.
   • If you are really concerned about animal cruelty then take a look at our abattoir system or investigate battery chicken farms or focus on the intensive cattle/pig rearing methods employed in some parts of Europe.
   • The scientists from the University of California at San Francisco reared young rats in an environment of moderate continuous noise.
   • It could be streptococcus suis, a bacteria endemic in most pig rearing nations.
   • The sheep penned were good specimens of the best breeds, and the standard was of a high order and enhanced the reputation of this part of the Cotswold Hills as a sheep rearing country.

   Synonyms

   breed, raise, keep, tend
3. 1.3 Grow or cultivate (plants)
   laboratory-reared plantlets

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Customers are given necessary advice on how to rear the plant, Mr Joseph says.
   • The seeds were the progeny of plants reared in a common greenhouse environment from the original seed collections, thus minimizing any possible maternal effects.
   • My freedom to roam at will conflicts with the farmer's need to make a living and to rear the crops and livestock we all need to exist.
   • Stocks of all three species were reared on banana medium at 18°.

   Synonyms

   grow, cultivate

2no object (of a horse or other animal) raise itself upright on its hind legs.

1. 2.1with adverbial of place (of a building, mountain, etc.) extend or appear to extend to a great height.
   houses reared up on either side

   Example sentencesExamples

   • Lahore station rears out of the surrounding anarchy like a liner out of the ocean.
   • Behind it rear an assortment of rolling hills and mountains, dominated by Ben Lui.
   • The forest thinned as branches parted; a few hamlets dotted grassy slopes below and thickly-wooded hills reared above.
   • The mountains now rear before us like terrestrial tsunamis - snow-peaked surf in five-thousand metre sets.
   • They are shaped like Mayan temples and they rear above the light and smog with the astonishing bulk of Ayers Rock in the desert.
   • A metallic roar cuts through the stillness, and out of the murk further up the valley a gigantic shape rears, an uprooted sapling clutched in its metal talons.
   • Above us a wall of broken black rock rears steeply.
   • Beyond it, the Cumbrian mountains rear, an impenetrable barrier.
   • Beyond the yawning valley reared a jagged skyline dominated by the massive peaks of Tirich Mir and Buni Zom.
   • The jagged Caucasus reared above these lush hills and even before Mestia it was clear that Svaneti's fabled splendour was no exaggeration.
   • The car pulled up the organization's main building; the old Irish castle seemed to rear like a rock out of the flat earth.
   • Far below, beneath shreds of glistening cloud, York is laid out like a map: the Ouse glinting in the sun, the Minster rearing above the clutter of buildings around its feet.

   Synonyms

   rise, rise up, tower, soar, loom
2. 2.2rear up (of a person) show anger or irritation.
   if anyone said the wrong thing, I used to rear up

   Example sentencesExamples

   • The alpha males (I guess) feel obliged to rear up periodically and assert their fiefdom with a ‘roar.’
   • Glennon and Holmes reared up on the referee: ‘We're not going to be dictated to by television,’ Glennon told him.
   • Already last night difficulties were rearing up.
   • Then that feisty optimist rears up in me, and my commitment deepens to enjoying this brief ride on the only green planet I happen to know of.
   • She held him upright and kind of buried his face in her shoulder, which didn't seem right, but neither of the Grans reared up on her, so it must have been okay.
   • Whereupon she reared up as well as she could, agitated, and exclaimed, ‘I haven't got a disease, have I, doctor?’
   • Nothing much was done for them and nobody feared that they would rear up in protest.
   • The farmer rears up contemptuously and roars, ‘You ever been hit in the head with a ‘soft rock’, boy?’
   • They all make me want to rear up and shout there are starving children in India, but I suspect that their entire lives are based around refuting the relevance of that reminder.
   • He rears up and instills fear into the hearts of his adversaries.
   • Every time I think that the studios are slow in getting what's going on out here, the traditional media rears up to let me know that they're even slower.
3. 2.3archaic with object Set upright.
   at once the mast we rear, at once unbind the spacious sheet