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:
Italian divers have discovered an ancient Roman shipwreck off the coast of Sicily, believed to be more than 2,000 years old.
From BBC ● Aug. 9, 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
Anwar said the traffickers arrested after the April shipwreck were released on bail despite facing potential life sentences.
From Barron's ● Jul. 21, 2026
They were the go-to gifts for Father’s Day: a book about some little-known chapter of World War II, the sweeping narrative of a shipwreck, perhaps the latest presidential biography.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 18, 2026
Three weeks she’d traveled with Matthias after the shipwreck.
From "Six of Crows" by Leigh Bardugo
The Caribbean was filled with centuries-old shipwrecks, and Mr. Dooley became enthralled by marine archaeology.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 21, 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
The researchers say their new hydrogel could be used to preserve and strengthen wood from shipwrecks without causing additional damage, enhancing the ability to untangle the mysteries of the past.
From Science Daily ● Dec. 3, 2024
Some three million shipwrecks lie on the ocean floor, and along with them, much of human history hides beneath the waves.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
British mariners shipwrecked on Palau some 50 years earlier had helped another confederation, the Koror people, in war with a feuding village.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026
A wildfire sparked by the flare of a shipwrecked mariner has burned nearly a fifth of Santa Rosa Island and marks what officials called the largest blaze recorded on the island in modern history.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 18, 2026
The survivors may have been subject to protections provided to shipwrecked sailors, or to those given to troops who have been rendered unable to continue fighting.
From BBC ● Dec. 1, 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 was caught in a storm & shipwrecked in India.
From "The (Mostly) True Story of Cleopatra's Needle" by Dan Gutman
“Maybe fate brought you here for a reason,” Blackthorne is told shortly after shipwrecking in Japan.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 26, 2024
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
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
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
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.
