shipwreck
Americannoun
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shipwrecks
plural
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the destruction or loss of a ship, as by sinking.
-
the remains of a wrecked ship.
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destruction or ruin.
the shipwreck of one's hopes.
verb (used with object)
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shipwrecks,
present (3rd person singular)
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shipwrecked,
past participle, past
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shipwrecking
present participle
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to cause to suffer shipwreck.
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to destroy; ruin.
verb (used without object)
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shipwrecks,
present (3rd person singular)
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shipwrecked,
past participle, past
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shipwrecking
present participle
noun
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the partial or total destruction of a ship at sea
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a wrecked ship or part of such a ship
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ruin or destruction
the shipwreck of all my hopes
verb
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to wreck or destroy (a ship)
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to bring to ruin or destruction
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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shipwrecksimple
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shipwreckssimple
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have shipwreckedperfect
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has shipwreckedperfect
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am shipwreckingprogressive
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are shipwreckingprogressive
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is shipwreckingprogressive
-
have been shipwreckingperfect progressive
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has been shipwreckingperfect progressive
Past
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shipwreckedsimple
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had shipwreckedperfect
-
was shipwreckingprogressive
-
were shipwreckingprogressive
-
had been shipwreckingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of shipwreck
before 1100; Middle English shipwrech remains of a shipwreck; see ship 1, wreck; replacing Old English scipwræc ( see wrack)
Explanation
A shipwreck is the damaged remains of a large sea-going vessel that washes to shore or sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Historians are interested in old shipwrecks, which reveal details of who was onboard or what was being transported when the ship was badly damaged. You can use the word for the act of the ship's destruction as well as the wreckage left behind: "The shipwreck occurred when the Titanic struck an iceberg." Storms, accidents, war, and sabotage can all lead to shipwrecks. An earlier maritime word with the same meaning was "ship-breaking."
Vocabulary lists containing shipwreck
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Waters has encountered complete artifacts while working with shipwreck collections, where intact objects are more common.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 22, 2026
Of the expedition’s 2,300 soldiers and sailors, 900 succumbed to wounds, illness or shipwreck.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 17, 2026
When Belgian underwater photographer Stefan Panis discovered a bottle buried in a shipwreck off the coast of Dover in 2025, he had no idea what he had found.
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
In Homer’s poem, the goddess Calypso rescues Odysseus from a shipwreck and keeps him on her island for seven years, even as he longs for Penelope and Ithaca.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 21, 2026
“The painting of the shipwreck by the door, it says ‘Kraken’ on the frame.
From "The Marvels" by Brian Selznick
Why do shipwrecks hold such an irresistible lure?
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
IOM says at least 375 migrants were reported dead or missing in January alone after a series of "invisible" shipwrecks in the central Mediterranean during periods of extreme winter weather.
From BBC ● Feb. 9, 2026
Homer’s “The Odyssey” follows Odysseus, a Greek king trying to get home after the Trojan War, a journey interrupted by Cyclopes, sirens, shipwrecks and gods with grudges.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 1, 2026
Unlike at calm Rongelap, where the Warrior could get as close as half a mile to shore, the water around Mejato was thick with coral and sported two visible shipwrecks to warn Willcox away.
From Slate ● Jul. 22, 2025
He was also interested in locating and charting ancient shipwrecks along the Turkish coast.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
How generations have read the Declaration of Independence, a shipwrecked crew’s island perils, the joys of soccer fandom on more.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 22, 2026
Ninety-six people have been rescued so far and a search is continuing for other passengers who were aboard the shipwrecked vessel that was heading towards Spain's Canary Islands.
From BBC ● Jan. 2, 2026
“It looks like two classically shipwrecked people,” Smith said, calling it a “highly questionable decision that these two people on that obviously incapacitated vessel were still in any kind of fight.”
From Salon ● Dec. 5, 2025
On Friday, Italy's coastguard said it was searching for the survivors of a shipwrecked vessel carrying about 30 people in the search and a rescue area of Malta, some 50 miles southeast of Lampedusa.
From Barron's ● Oct. 18, 2025
He felt like he was shipwrecked in the middle of the ocean.
From "I Survived Hurricane Katrina, 2005" by Lauren Tarshis
“Maybe fate brought you here for a reason,” Blackthorne is told shortly after shipwrecking in Japan.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 26, 2024
And of the risks I ran of utterly shipwrecking my character and good name and from which Thou didst rescue me.
From Santa Teresa an Appreciation: with some of the best passages of the Saint's Writings by Alexander Whyte
Instead he continued: “But I ain’t the one to bear a grudge, Duval, although you did come mighty near shipwrecking my faith in human natur’.
From The Boy Aviators' Flight for a Fortune by John Henry Goldfrap
He was in danger of shipwrecking on that fatal sunken reef to American character, popularity.
From Se-quo-yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V.41 by Unknown
I’ve had a pretty good hardening already, what with knocking on the head, drowning, shipwrecking, starving, and walking off my legs.”
From Yussuf the Guide The Mountain Bandits; Strange Adventure in Asia Minor by John Schonberg
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
