Hypertext Webster Gateway: "wrack"
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Wrack \Wrack\, v. t.
To wreck. [Obs.] --Dryden.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Wrack \Wrack\, n.
A thin, flying cloud; a rack.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Wrack \Wrack\, v. t.
To rack; to torment. [R.]
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Wrack \Wrack\, n. [OE. wrak wreck. See {Wreck}.]
1. Wreck; ruin; destruction. [Obs.] --Chaucer. ``A world
devote to universal wrack.'' --Milton.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) (web1913)
Wreck \Wreck\, n. [OE. wrak, AS. wr[ae]c exile, persecution,
misery, from wrecan to drive out, punish; akin to D. wrak,
adj., damaged, brittle, n., a wreck, wraken to reject, throw
off, Icel. rek a thing drifted ashore, Sw. vrak refuse, a
wreck, Dan. vrag. See {Wreak}, v. t., and cf. {Wrack} a
marine plant.] [Written also {wrack}.]
1. The destruction or injury of a vessel by being cast on
shore, or on rocks, or by being disabled or sunk by the
force of winds or waves; shipwreck.
Hard and obstinate As is a rock amidst the raging
floods, 'Gainst which a ship, of succor desolate,
Doth suffer wreck, both of herself and goods.
--Spenser.
2. Destruction or injury of anything, especially by violence;
ruin; as, the wreck of a railroad train.
The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.
--Addison.
Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst
the wreck of its political life. --J. R. Green.
3. The ruins of a ship stranded; a ship dashed against rocks
or land, and broken, or otherwise rendered useless, by
violence and fracture; as, they burned the wreck.
4. The remain of anything ruined or fatally injured.
To the fair haven of my native home, The wreck of
what I was, fatigued I come. --Cowper.
5. (Law) Goods, etc., which, after a shipwreck, are cast upon
the land by the sea. --Bouvier.
From WordNet (r) 1.7 (wn)
wrack
n 1: dried seaweed especially that cast ashore
2: the destruction or collapse of something; "wrack and ruin"
[syn: {rack}]
3: growth of marine vegetation especially of the large forms
such as rockweeds and kelp [syn: {sea wrack}]
v : smash or break forcefully; "The kid busted up the car" [syn:
{bust up}, {wreck}]
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