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.
Could this be wreckage from a 214-year-old maritime disaster?
From BBC ● Aug. 7, 2026
Outside Odesa, after a recent drone explosion, we found 83-year-old Andrii Dudik, surveying the mangled wreckage of his house and garden.
From BBC ● Aug. 6, 2026
Dozens of homes stood gutted and abandoned, while a charred fire engine lay among the wreckage nearby, an AFP reporter saw.
From Barron's ● Aug. 4, 2026
Firefighters and police, some wearing face masks, were working amid the twisted, smoldering wreckage of the aircraft.
From Barron's ● Aug. 2, 2026
With a cry, Torak started rooting around in the wreckage.
From "Wolf Brother" by Michelle Paver
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.
