shipwreck
Americannoun
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shipwrecks
plural
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the destruction or loss of a ship, as by sinking.
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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
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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
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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:
Researchers in France and Croatia analyzed the protective coating on the Roman Republic shipwreck Ilovik-Paržine 1, which sank about 2,200 years ago off the coast of what is now Croatia.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 21, 2026
The story of Fuller’s death in a shipwreck within sight of Fire Island, N.Y., is agonizing to read.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 14, 2026
At the time, it was hailed as the world's oldest-known intact shipwreck.
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
In 1958, Kemal Aras, the Turkish sponge diver who had discovered the shipwreck at Cape Gelidonya and had taken Peter Throckmorton to see it, took Throckmorton to the site of another shipwreck he had discovered.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
Across several studies, participants who listened to specific excerpts from symphonies by Liszt or Mahler imagined similar narratives in the music—storms, pirates and shipwrecks, in one case.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 15, 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
HMS Nottingham was identified 60 miles off the coast of Scotland by a team of ten divers led by ProjectXplore, an international project that aims to locate historically-significant shipwrecks around the UK.
From BBC ● Jul. 21, 2025
These inventions include side-scan sonar, which proved invaluable when locating shipwrecks, advanced underwater picture-taking equipment, and equally advanced methods of mapping a wreck site.
From "Shipwrecked!" by Martin W. Sandler
International law requires belligerents in a war to assist sailors wounded or shipwrecked in battle.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 10, 2026
Under the Second Geneva Convention, countries at war are required to take "all possible measures" to rescue wounded or shipwrecked sailors after a naval attack.
From BBC ● Mar. 6, 2026
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
“It’s a song that I’ve always really loved, and the more I listened to it, I was like, there’s this woman who’s being shipwrecked and she’s being born again,” Edebiri says.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 18, 2025
The morning after they landed, Aeneas with his friend, the faithful Achates, left his wretched shipwrecked followers to try to find out what part of the world they were in.
From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton
“Maybe fate brought you here for a reason,” Blackthorne is told shortly after shipwrecking in Japan.
From Seattle Times ● Feb. 26, 2024
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
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
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.
