From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishtear somebody away phrasal verbLEAVE A PLACEto make yourself or someone else leave a place when you or they do not want to leave He was enjoying the fun and couldn’t tear himself away. from We finally managed to tear him away from the TV. → tear→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
tear away• Bugger both of you, he thought angrily, at last tearing his eyes away.• It woke her and for a moment she struggled, her hands coming up as if to tear it away.• Of much of this process Coffin was a spectator; he was unable to tear himself away.• Smoke poured upwards, pale-grey and blurred, like make-up smudged by tears.• He tore himself away from her only long enough to take off his shorts.• It caused talk when State Senator Abe Marovitz tore himself away from the legislature to counsel client Bioff.• Before tearing myself away, I stopped at the edge of the market beside the asparagus-seller.• There she wept for her sins and her tears washed away the blood.tear from• He tore himself away from her only long enough to take off his shorts. 