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RACK

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Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.

rack¹

  • /ɹæk/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ɹak/ British, Northern England, Southern, Standard
  • /ɾak/ Scotland, Wales
  • /ɹɛk/ New Zealand

Sounds like wrack · Rhymes with -æk

Where it comes from

From Middle English rakke, rekke, from Middle Dutch rac, recke, rec (Dutch rek), see rekken.

noun racks

  1. A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other.
  2. Any of various kinds of frame for holding luggage or other objects on a vehicle or vessel.
  3. historical A device, incorporating a ratchet, used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits. Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack, / Where men enforced do speak anything.
  4. A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes.
  5. especially, slang A bunk. Chief Stevens approached my rack and repeatedly ordered me to vacate my rack and report to the working party.
  6. broadly, slang, uncountable Sleep. Do I have to do this now? Like, I really need to get some rack.
  7. A distaff.
  8. A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with those of a gearwheel, pinion, or worm, which is to drive or be driven by it. Holonym: rack and pinion
  9. A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with a pawl as a ratchet allowing movement in one direction only, used for example in a handbrake or crossbow.
  10. A cranequin, a mechanism including a rack, pinion and pawl, providing both mechanical advantage and a ratchet, used to bend and cock a crossbow.
  11. A set of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).
  12. A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs. I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher's yesterday.
  13. obsolete A bone of a horse. The Par quadratum […] Their Use is to bend the Racks of the Loins with a right Motion forward or downward, but when one only acts, it draws the Loins to one Side somewhat downwards.
  14. A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.
  15. A plastic tray used for holding and moving chips.
  16. slang, vulgar A woman's breasts.
  17. A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded. rappel rack
  18. slang A climber's set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, carabiners, nuts, Friends, etc. I used almost a full rack on the second pitch.
  19. A grate on which bacon is laid.
  20. A set with a distributive binary operation whose action on the set is invertible.
  21. slang A thousand dollars, especially if the proceeds are from a crime.

rack²

  • /ɹæk/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ɹak/ British, Northern England, Southern, Standard
  • /ɾak/ Scotland, Wales
  • /ɹɛk/ New Zealand

Sounds like wrack · Rhymes with -æk

Where it comes from

From Old English reċċan (“to stretch out, extend”).

verb racks · racking · racked · rack

  1. To place in or hang on a rack.
  2. To torture (someone) on the rack. He was racked and miserably tormented.
  3. To cause (someone) to suffer pain. Vaunting aloud but racked with deep despair.
  4. figuratively To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion. Try what my credit can in Venice do; / That shall be racked even to the uttermost.
  5. obsolete To alternately concatenate two words to magical effect. Foꝛ when we heare one racke the name of God,/Abiure the ſcriptures, and his Sauiour Chꝛiſt...
  6. To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.
  7. slang, transitive To strike in the testicles. Bike7125 raises a great point suggesting that cups could have been recommended "optional" equipment in school PE. I never got racked by a baseball or softball, but we did have a gym teacher, who insisted on a weekly session of a "cruelty sport" called bombardment. The idea was to throw basketballs a
  8. slang To shoplift (especially in a megastore), often by taking off of a rack. He racked three boxes of gum!
  9. broadly To take that which belongs to another, without regard of right or permission.
  10. To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.
  11. To move the slide bar on a shotgun in order to chamber the next round.
  12. To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.
  13. To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.
  14. To tend to shear a structure (that is, force it to bend, lean, or move in different directions at different points). Post-and-lintel construction racks easily.

rack³

  • /ɹæk/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ɹak/ British, Northern England, Southern, Standard
  • /ɾak/ Scotland, Wales
  • /ɹɛk/ New Zealand

Sounds like wrack · Rhymes with -æk

Where it comes from

From Middle English reken, from Old Norse reka (“to be drifted, tost”)

The noun is from Middle English rak, rakke, from Middle English rek (“drift; thing tossed ashore; jetsam”), from the verb.

verb racks · racking · racked

  1. To drive; move; go forward rapidly; stir.
  2. To fly, as vapour or broken clouds.

noun

  1. uncountable Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapour in the sky. The winds in the upper region, which move the clouds above, which we call the rack, […] pass without noise.

rack⁴

  • /ɹæk/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ɹak/ British, Northern England, Southern, Standard
  • /ɾak/ Scotland, Wales
  • /ɹɛk/ New Zealand

Sounds like wrack · Rhymes with -æk

Where it comes from

Inherited from Middle English rakken.

verb racks · racking · racked

  1. To clarify, and thereby deter further fermentation of, beer, wine or cider by draining or siphoning it from the dregs. It is in common practice to draw wine or beer from the lees (which we call racking), whereby it will clarify much the sooner.

rack⁵

  • /ɹæk/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ɹak/ British, Northern England, Southern, Standard
  • /ɾak/ Scotland, Wales
  • /ɹɛk/ New Zealand

Sounds like wrack · Rhymes with -æk

Where it comes from

See rack (“that which stretches”), or rock (verb).

verb racks · racking · racked

  1. To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace. The other two (only racking, no thorough-paced protestants) watched their opportunity to run away

noun racks

  1. A fast amble.

rack⁶

  • /ɹæk/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ɹak/ British, Northern England, Southern, Standard
  • /ɾak/ Scotland, Wales
  • /ɹɛk/ New Zealand

Sounds like wrack · Rhymes with -æk

Where it comes from

See wreck.

noun racks

  1. obsolete A wreck; destruction. All goes to rack.

rack⁷

  • /ɹæk/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ɹak/ British, Northern England, Southern, Standard
  • /ɾak/ Scotland, Wales
  • /ɹɛk/ New Zealand

Sounds like wrack · Rhymes with -æk

Where it comes from

Uncertain. Perhaps a contraction of rabbock, an alteration ( + -ock) of rabbit.

noun racks

  1. obsolete A young rabbit, or its skin. Now, sir, you would say a skin is a skin, we say it is a ' whole,' or a 'half,' or a 'quarter,' or a 'rack,' or a 'sucker. Suckers are skins of infant rabbits, and of little value. Eight racks are equal to one whole.

rack⁸

  • /ɹæk/ Australia, US, UK
  • /ɹak/ British, Northern England, Southern, Standard
  • /ɾak/ Scotland, Wales
  • /ɹɛk/ New Zealand

Sounds like wrack · Rhymes with -æk

noun

  1. alternative, uncountable Alternative form of arak.arak If it was my officers wanted a stone jar of rack or a dozen of bottled ale, I might manage 'em, but I'm nowhere with sacks.

RACK⁹

noun

  1. abbreviation, initialism, uncountable Initialism of risk-aware consensual kink.risk-aware consensual kink

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