wrack
pronunciation
How to pronounce wrack in British English:
UK [ræk]
How to pronounce wrack in American English:
US [ræk]
-
- Noun:
- dried seaweed especially that cast ashore
- the destruction or collapse of something
- growth of marine vegetation especially of the large forms such as rockweeds and kelp
-
- Verb:
- smash or break forcefully
Word Origin
- wrack (n.)
- late 14c., "wrecked ship, shipwreck," probably from Middle Dutch wrak "wreck," from Proto-Germanic *wrakaz-, from root *wreg- "to push, shove drive" (see wreak). The root sense perhaps is "that which is cast ashore." Sense perhaps influenced by Old English wræc "misery, punishment," and wrecan "to punish, drive out" (source of modern wreak). The meaning "damage, disaster, destruction" (in wrack and ruin) is from c. 1400, from the Old English word, but conformed in spelling to this one. Sense of "seaweed, etc., cast up on shore" is recorded from 1510s, probably an alteration of wreck (n.) in this sense (mid-15c.). Wrack, wreck, rack and wretch were utterly tangled in spelling and somewhat in sense in Middle and early modern English.
- wrack (v.)
- "to ruin or wreck" (originally of ships), 1560s, from earlier intransitive sense "to be shipwrecked" (late 15c.), from wrack (n.). Often confused in this sense since 16c. with rack (v.) in the sense of "torture on the rack;" to wrack one's brains is thus erroneous. Related: Wracked; wracking.
Example
- 1. I watched as she walked to the built in shoe wrack and get some heels .
- 2. Atmospheric tide ; the tides that wrack saturn 's moons .
- 3. The wrack had begun to stink as it rotted in the sun .
- 4. She wrack her brains to solve that complicated problem .
- 5. Very little impolicy can bring wrack and ruin .