wrack
wreck or wreckage.
damage or destruction: wrack and ruin.
a trace of something destroyed: leaving not a wrack behind.
seaweed or other vegetation cast on the shore.
to wreck: He wracked his car up on the river road.
Origin of wrack
1Words that may be confused with wrack
- rack, wrack
Words Nearby wrack
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use wrack in a sentence
So I began to wrack my brain to come up at least once a day with a pearl of wit or wisdom.
Now I say it ain't a-goin' to be more'n two hours befo' this wrack breaks up and washes off down the river.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Complete | Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)And they came forward like the wrack of a surviving army at judgement day.
Hunters Out of Space | Joseph Everidge KelleamSuddenly something seemed to rise and assume form out of the storm-wrack, and this gradually grew into the shape of a vessel.
My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands | George Francis TrainThe waters of the sea are poured in thunder wrack upon the hills and run in rivers back into the sea.
The Iron Puddler | James J. Davis
The moon had gone in, and a misty scud-wrack spreading itself overhead was creeping around the dim crags on high.
Aletta | Bertram Mitford
British Dictionary definitions for wrack (1 of 2)
rack
/ (ræk) /
collapse or destruction (esp in the phrase wrack and ruin)
something destroyed or a remnant of such
a variant spelling of rack 1
Origin of wrack
1usage For wrack
British Dictionary definitions for wrack (2 of 2)
/ (ræk) /
seaweed or other marine vegetation that is floating in the sea or has been cast ashore
any of various seaweeds of the genus Fucus, such as F. serratus (serrated wrack)
literary, or dialect
a wreck or piece of wreckage
a remnant or fragment of something destroyed
Origin of wrack
2Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with wrack
see under rack.
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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