wrack
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wrack¹
- /ɹæk/
Sounds like rack · Rhymes with -æk
Where it comes from
From Middle English wrake, wrache, wreche, from a merger of Old English wracu, wræc (“misery, suffering”) and Old English wrǣċ (“vengeance, revenge”). See also wrake.
noun wracks · wrake
- The remains of something; a wreck. Lytle was already moaning in shame, fallen back in bed with his hand across his face like he'd just washed up somewhere, a piece of wrack.
- Vengeance; revenge; persecution; punishment; consequence; trouble. The dead mans corps hath made ſome Serpents weépe, / Such rewth may ryſe in beaſts of bloudy race: / And yet can man (which bragges aboue the reſt) / Uſe wracke for rewth? can murder like him beſt?
- Ruin; destruction. Therefore, in sign her treasure suffered wrack, Since Hero's time hath half the world been black.
verb wracks · wracking · wracked
- To execute vengeance on; avenge.
- To worry; tease; torment.
wrack²
- /ɹæk/
Sounds like rack · Rhymes with -æk
Where it comes from
Late Middle English, from Middle Dutch wrak, ultimately related to Proto-Germanic *wrekaną (“to drive out”), the source of wreak and wreck. Doublet of vraic.
Cognate with German Wrack, Old Norse rek, Danish vrag, Swedish vrak, Old English wræc); also compare Gothic 𐍅𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 (wrikan), 𐍅𐍂𐌰𐌺𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wrakjan, “persecute”), Old Norse reka (“drive”).
noun wracks
- Remnant from a shipwreck as washed ashore; flotsam or jetsam.
- The right to claim such items.
- Any marine vegetation cast up on shore, especially seaweed of the family Fucaceae.
- Weeds, vegetation, or rubbish floating on a river or pond.
- A high, flying cloud; a rack. A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds.
verb wracks · wracking · wracked · wrackt
- To wreck, especially a ship. Nor did the croakers have long to wait. The second night after the drowning of the mate the little yacht was suddenly wracked from stem to stern. About one o’clock in the morning there was a terrific impact that threw the slumbering guests and crew from berth and bunk. A mighty shudder ran through t
- Alternative form of rack (“to cause to suffer pain, etc.”).rack It marked her first performance in over four years after revealing that her body had been wracked with painful spasms following her diagnosis with the rare and chronic neurological disorder.
