''rack'' ▫ᴱᴺ Entries

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

rack - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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A rack for weights in a gym

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A dish rack holding some plates

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A torture rack (etymology 1 sense 3)

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A rack (etymology 1 sense 14) of pool balls

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A rack (etymology 1 sense 12) of lamb in a butcher’s shop

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A climber’s rack (etymology 1 sense 18)

Noun

rack (plural racks)

• A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other.
• Any of various kinds of frame for holding luggage or other objects on a vehicle or vessel.
  • ✤ Synonym: luggage rack
• (historical) A device, incorporating a ratchet, used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.
  • ✤ Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack,/Where men enforced do speak anything.¹
  • ✤ During the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity.²
• (nautical) A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes.
  • ✤ Synonym: rack block
• (slang, especially nautical) A bunk.
  • ✤ Chief Stevens approached my rack and repeatedly ordered me to vacate my rack and report to the working party.³
  • ✤ By the time I had unpacked my sea bag, made my rack, and finished a good long hot shower, it was late in the evening.⁴
  • ✤ I took off my helmet, sat it gently down at the head of my rack on the wooden deck, plopped my butt down on my rack again, and began taking off my stateside assbusting boots.⁵
• (nautical, by extension, slang, uncountable) Sleep.
  • ✤ Do I have to do this now? Like, I really need to get some rack.⁶
• A distaff.
• (mechanical engineering, rail transport) A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with those of a gearwheel, pinion, or worm, which is to drive or be driven by it.
  • ✤ Holonym: rack and pinion
  • ✤ Just beyond that station the first step is encountered and the rack resorted to, taking the line on a gradient of 1 in 9 over a steeply inclined bridge and through a spiral tunnel.⁷
  • ✤ The ladder-type Riggenbach rack is the one in use on both systems.⁸
• (mechanical engineering) A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with a pawl as a ratchet allowing movement in one direction only, used for example in a handbrake or crossbow.
• A cranequin, a mechanism including a rack, pinion and pawl, providing both mechanical advantage and a ratchet, used to bend and cock a crossbow.
• A set of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).
• A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs.
  • ✤ I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher’s yesterday.
• (obsolete) A bone of a horse.
  • ✤ The Par quadratum […] Their Use is to bend the Racks of the Loins with a right Motion forward or downward, but when one only acts, it draws the Loins to one Side somewhat downwards.⁹
  • ✤ * Racks, the bones of a dead horse. Term used by horse-slaughterers.*¹⁰
• (billiards, snooker) A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.
• (gambling) A plastic tray used for holding and moving chips.
• (slang, vulgar) A woman’s breasts.
  • ✤ Synonyms: see Thesaurus: breasts
• (climbing, caving) A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded.
  • ✤ *rappel rack *
  • ✤ *abseil rack *
• (climbing, slang) A climber’s set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, carabiners, nuts, Friends, etc.
  • ✤ I used almost a full rack on the second pitch.
• A grate on which bacon is laid.
• (algebra) A set with a distributive binary operation whose action on the set is invertible.
• (slang) A thousand dollars, especially if the proceeds are from a crime.

Verb

rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)

• To place in or hang on a rack.
• To torture (someone) on the rack.
  • ✤ He was racked and miserably tormented.¹¹
  • ✤ As the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt later recalled, his father, Henry VII’s jewel-house keeper Henry Wyatt, had been racked on the orders of Richard III, who had sat there and watched.¹²
• To cause (someone) to suffer pain.
  • ✤ Synonyms: torment, torture; see also Thesaurus: hurt
  • ✤ Vaunting aloud but racked with deep despair.¹³
• (figurative) To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.
  • ✤ Try what my credit can in Venice do;/That shall be racked even to the uttermost.¹⁴
  • ✤ The landlords there most shamefully rack their tenants.¹⁵
  • ✤ Grant that I may never rack a Scripture Similie, beyond the true intent thereof.¹⁶
• (obsolete, occult) To alternately concatenate two words to magical effect.
  • ✤ Foꝛ when we heare one racke the name of God,/Abiure the ſcriptures, and his Sauiour Chꝛiſt…¹⁷
• (billiards, snooker, pool) To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.
  • ✤ Synonym: rack up
• (slang, transitive) To strike in the testicles.
  • ✤ Bike7125 raises a great point suggesting that cups could have been recommended “optional” equipment in school PE. I never got racked by a baseball or softball, but we did have a gym teacher, who insisted on a weekly session of a “cruelty sport” called bombardment. The idea was to throw basketballs at a line of guys, and try to hit them. (Guess where most gym bullys aimed!)¹⁸
• (slang) To shoplift (especially in a megastore), often by taking off of a rack.
  • ✤ He racked three boxes of gum!
  • ✤ my buddy used to go racking for spray paint at the home despot. then a banger shot him in the head one night.${}^{[sic]}$¹⁹
• (by extension) To take that which belongs to another, without regard of right or permission.
  • ✤ Synonym: steal
• (firearms) To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.
• (firearms) To move the slide bar on a shotgun in order to chamber the next round.
• (mining) To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.
• (nautical) To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.
• (structural engineering) To tend to shear a structure (that is, force it to bend, lean, or move in different directions at different points).
  • ✤ Synonym: shear
  • ✤ Post-and-lintel construction racks easily.
  • ✤ The racking strength of a wall system is defined in terms of its ability to resist horizon­tal inplane shear forces. The shear, or racking, forces which act on wail systems arise primarily from wind.²⁰

Verb

rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)

• To drive; move; go forward rapidly; stir.
• To fly, as vapour or broken clouds.

Noun

rack (uncountable)

• Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapour in the sky.
  • ✤ The winds in the upper region, which move the clouds above, which we call the rack, […] pass without noise.²¹
  • ✤ And the night rack came rolling up.²²
  • ✤ Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish… That which is now a horse… The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct²³

Verb

rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)

• (brewing) To clarify, and thereby deter further fermentation of, beer, wine or cider by draining or siphoning it from the dregs.
  • ✤ It is in common practice to draw wine or beer from the lees (which we call racking), whereby it will clarify much the sooner.²⁴
  • ✤ The Darwin administrator, J.C. Archer, with great ceremony, turned on the flow to rack the precious golden stuff into casks.²⁵

Verb

rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)

• (of a horse) To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace.
  • ✤ The other two (only racking, no thorough-paced protestants) watched their opportunity to run away²⁶

Noun

rack (plural racks)

• A fast amble.

Noun

rack (plural racks)

• (obsolete) A wreck; destruction.
  • ✤ All goes to rack.²⁷

Noun

rack (plural racks)

• (obsolete) A young rabbit, or its skin.
  • ✤ Now, sir, you would say a skin is a skin, we say it is a ‘whole,’ or a ‘half,’ or a ‘quarter,’ or a ‘rack,’ or a ‘sucker. Suckers are skins of infant rabbits, and of little value. Eight racks are equal to one whole.²⁸
  • ✤ The skin of a sucker is white, of a quarter, black and white striped, of a rack all black, and of a best all white.²⁹
  • ✤ *Those would be of different shades of colour according to the time of year at which they were produced, those bred about May-day undergoing no change from their white colour, but from a white rack * become a whole skin; […]³⁰
  • ✤ Rabbit skins are sorted into wholes, halves, quarters, racks, and suckers, or very small skins.³¹

Noun

rack (uncountable)

• Alternative form of arak.
  • ✤ If it was my officers wanted a stone jar of rack or a dozen of bottled ale, I might manage ‘em, but I’m nowhere with sacks.³²

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American, Australian) IPA: /ɹæk/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
• (Standard Southern British, Northern England) IPA: /ɹak/
• (Scotland, Wales) IPA: /ɾak/
• (New Zealand) IPA: /ɹɛk/
• Rhymes: -æk
• Homophone: wrack

Etymology 1

From Middle English rakke, rekke, from Middle Dutch rac, recke, rec (Dutch rek), see rekken.

Etymology 2

From Old English reċċan (“to stretch out, extend”).

Etymology 3

From Middle English reken, from Old Norse reka (“to be drifted, tost”)³³

The noun is from Middle English rak, rakke, from Middle English rek (“drift; thing tossed ashore; jetsam”), from the verb.

Etymology 4

Inherited from Middle English rakken.

Etymology 5

See rack (“that which stretches”), or rock (verb).

Etymology 6

See wreck.

Etymology 7

Uncertain. Perhaps a contraction of rabbock, an alteration (+‎ -ock) of rabbit.

Etymology 8

Printed 2026-07-18.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

1. c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]: ↩

2. 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter I, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume, London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC: ↩

3. 2008, Byron L. Smith, Prescription Music, →ISBN, page 33: ↩

4. 2010, Herb Brewer, Chronicles of a Marine Rifleman: Vietnam, 1965-1966, →ISBN, page 171: ↩

5. 2016, Cpl. Osborn R. E, Like Killing Rats, →ISBN: ↩

6. 2009 December 18, 1:00:07 from the start, in Avatar, spoken by Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), 20th Century Fox: ↩

7. 1950 November, H. P. White, “The Furka-Oberalp Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 767: ↩

8. 1960 December, ‘Voyageur’, “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 750: ↩

9. 1722, William Gibson, The Farrier’s New Guide, page 65: ↩

10. 1873, Slang Dictionary, John Camden Hotten: ↩

11. 1563 March 30 (Gregorian calendar), John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], →OCLC: ↩

12. 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin, published 2012, page 228: ↩

13. 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a] nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a] nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC: ↩

14. c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]: ↩

15. 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b] y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC: ↩

16. 1645, Thomas Fuller, “Scripture Observations”, in Good Thoughts in Bad Times, […], Exeter, Devon: […] Thomas Hunt, →OCLC, section I, page 69: ↩

17. 1589–1592 (date written), Ch[ristopher] Marl[owe], The Tragicall History of D. Faustus. […], London: […] V[alentine] S[immes] for Thomas Bushell, published 1604, →OCLC, signature B2, recto: ↩

18. 1999 November 2, Squad Leader, “CUPS Required for Gym Class?”, in alt.support.jock-strap ‎${}^{[1]}$ (Usenet): ↩

19. 2007 May 4, streetwords, Urban Dictionary ‎${}^{[2]}$: ↩

20. 1977, Roger L. Tuomi, David S. Gromala, “Racking Strength of Walls”, in USDA Forest Service Research Paper ‎${}^{[3]}$, number FPL 301: ↩

21. 1669, Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum or A Natural History in ten Centuries, page 32: ↩

22. 1851, Charles Kingsley, Three Fishers: ↩

23. c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene xiv]: ↩

24. 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis[Bacon], “”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p] rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC: ↩

25. 1987, Keith Dunstan, The Amber Nectar, Ringwood: Vicking O’Neil, page 108: ↩

26. 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC,: ↩

27. 1665 September 19 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “September 9th, 1665”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume V, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1895, →OCLC: ↩

28. 1869 February 13, “Rabbit Skin”, in All the Year Round, page 247: ↩

29. 1879, Ure’s Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, page 380: ↩

30. 1882, Bees, rabbits, and pigeons; how to breed and how to rear them: ↩

31. 1892, Henry Poland, Fur-bearing Animals in Nature and in Commerce, page 289: ↩

32. 1907, George Manville Fenn, Trapped by Malays: A Tale of Bayonet and Kris, page 347: ↩

33. “rack”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC. ↩

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