i try to improve my english through English songs and i was listening to asong for katy perry called "part of me" and i found this ideom in it but i couldn't get it well? and how to use them ?
Hello! I didn't know this song, so I looked up the lyrics. In context, following "love is cheap," I would understand "tearing at the seams" in a very literal way. Cheaply made clothing will fall apart at the seams -- the places where the cloth was stitched together.
If the love is described as "cheap" and "tearing at the seams," I would understand that to mean that the love wasn't strong enough to withstand adversity -- much the same way that cheaply made clothing will fall apart with hard wear.
I hope that helps!
To tear at means to pull or rip or break something apart with quite a lot of energy.
"Tearing at the seams" is an infrequently used phrase, and is a metaphor for breaking out of a restrictive situation.
