noun
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same as wreck
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the act of wrecking or the state of being wrecked; ruin or destruction
Etymology
Origin of wreckage
Explanation
What's left behind after a destructive accident or disaster is called wreckage. The day after tornadoes sweep through a town, its inhabitants might search the wreckage of their houses for mementoes and valuables. When a bomb goes off, a city floods, or a house burns down, mangled pieces of buildings and cars often remain — wreckage that's a reminder of the catastrophe. After the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank, the wreckage sat on the ocean floor for decades before divers found it. Wreckage comes from wreck, originally "goods washed ashore after a shipwreck."
Vocabulary lists containing wreckage
Florida's B.E.S.T. Common Suffixes: -age
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This Week in Words: Current Events Vocab for June 12–June 18, 2021
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Compound Fracture
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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.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani praised the emergency services for their work, saying the site involved "precarious wreckage to navigate and dangerous voids beneath the surface."
From Barron's ● Nov. 12, 2026
Astronomers have discovered an extraordinary ring of planetary wreckage around a dead star, offering a possible preview of what could happen to our own Solar System billions of years from now.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 6, 2026
The landscape today is one of wreckage and ruin.
From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 5, 2026
Chapman said on Tuesday that the force of the impact severely damaged the wreckage.
From BBC ● Nov. 3, 2026
The ground shook as a distant rumble increased in volume and the wreckage around us vibrated.
From "City of the Plague God" by Sarwat Chadda
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
