''wrack'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260718130800-00-⌔

wrack - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

wrack (plural wracks)

• The remains of something; a wreck.
  • ✤ Lytle was already moaning in shame, fallen back in bed with his hand across his face like he’d just washed up somewhere, a piece of wrack.¹
• (literary, archaic or UK, dialectal) Vengeance; revenge; persecution; punishment; consequence; trouble.
  • ✤ The dead mans corps hath made ſome Serpents weépe,/Such rewth may ryſe in beaſts of bloudy race:/And yet can man (which bragges aboue the reſt)/Uſe wracke for rewth? can murder like him beſt?²
• (archaic except UK, dialectal) Ruin; destruction.
  • ✤ Therefore, in sign her treasure suffered wrack,
    Since Hero’s time hath half the world been black.³

Verb

wrack (third-person singular simple present wracks, present participle wracking, simple past and past participle wracked)

• (UK dialectal, transitive) To execute vengeance on; avenge.
• (UK dialectal, transitive) To worry; tease; torment.

Noun

wrack (countable and uncountable, plural wracks)

• (archaic)
  • Remnant from a shipwreck as washed ashore; flotsam or jetsam.
  • The right to claim such items.
• Any marine vegetation cast up on shore, especially seaweed of the family Fucaceae.
• Weeds, vegetation, or rubbish floating on a river or pond.
• A high, flying cloud; a rack.
  • ✤ A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds.⁴

Verb

wrack (third-person singular simple present wracks, present participle wracking, simple past and past participlewracked or wrackt)

• (transitive, usually passive voice) To wreck, especially a ship.
  • ✤ Nor did the croakers have long to wait. The second night after the drowning of the mate the little yacht was suddenly wracked from stem to stern. About one o’clock in the morning there was a terrific impact that threw the slumbering guests and crew from berth and bunk. A mighty shudder ran through the frail craft; she lay far over to starboard; the engines stopped.⁵
• Alternative form of rack (“to cause to suffer pain, etc.”).
  • ✤ It marked her first performance in over four years after revealing that her body had been wracked with painful spasms following her diagnosis with the rare and chronic neurological disorder.⁶

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ɹæk/
• Audio (US): 🔊
• Rhymes: -æk
• Homophone: rack

Etymology 1

From Middle English wrake, wrache, wreche, from a merger of Old English wracu, wræc (“misery, suffering”) and Old English wrǣċ (“vengeance, revenge”). See also wrake.

Etymology 2

🖼️ ➺

Late Middle English, from Middle Dutch wrak, ultimately related to Proto-Germanic ﹡wrekaną (“to drive out”), the source of wreak and wreck.⁷ Doublet of vraic.

Cognate with German Wrack, Old Norse rek, Danish vrag, Swedish vrak, Old English wræc); also compare Gothic 𐍅𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 (wrikan), 𐍅𐍂𐌰𐌺𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wrakjan, “persecute”), Old Norse reka (“drive”).

Printed 2026-07-18.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. 2011, John Jeremiah Sullivan, “Mr. Lytle: An Essay”, in Pulphead: ↩

2. 1575, Jacques du Fouilloux, “The Hare, to the Hunter”, in George Gascoigne, transl., The Noble Art of Venerie or Hunting. […], London: […] Thomas Purfoot, published 1611, →OCLC, page 177: ↩

3. c. 1593, Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander ‎${}^{[1]}$, page 7: ↩

4. 1892, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ‎${}^{[2]}$, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2011: ↩

5. 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 115: ↩

6. 2024 July 26, “Fans rave as Celine Dion and a FLYING cauldron save washout Paris Olympics opening ceremony”, in dailymail.co.uk ‎${}^{[3]}$: ↩

7. James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Wrack”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC. ↩