wrack

See also: Wrack

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɹæk/
• 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.

Noun

wrack (plural wracks)

1. (archaic, dialectal or literary) Vengeance; revenge; persecution; punishment; consequence; trouble.
2. (archaic, except in dialects) Ruin; destruction.
   • c. 1593, Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander‎^[1], page 7:

     Therefore, in sign her treasure suffered wrack,
     Since Hero's time hath half the world been black.

3. The remains of something; a wreck.
   • 2011, John Jeremiah Sullivan, “Mr. Lytle: An Essay”, in Pulphead:

     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.

Alternative forms

• wrake (obsolete)

Derived terms

• wrack and ruin

Translations

archaic or literary: revenge, persecution

• Dutch: wraak (nl)

archaic, except in dialects: ruin, destruction

• German: Wrack (de) n

the remains, a wreck

• German: Wrack (de) n
• Hungarian: roncs (hu)
• Spanish: pecio (es), restos (es)

Verb

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

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

Etymology 2

Piles of wrack (marine vegetation) on a beach shore

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

Noun

wrack (countable and uncountable, plural wracks)

1. (archaic)
   1. Remnant from a shipwreck as washed ashore; flotsam or jetsam.
   2. The right to claim such items.
2. Any marine vegetation cast up on shore, especially seaweed of the family Fucaceae.
3. Weeds, vegetation, or rubbish floating on a river or pond.
4. A high, flying cloud; a rack.
   • 1892, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes‎^[2], HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2011:

     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.

Derived terms

• black wrack (Fucus serratus)
• bladder wrack (Fucus vesiculosus)
• buckey wrack (Fucus vesiculosus)
• channelled wrack (Pelvetia canaliculata)
• egg wrack (Ascophyllum nodosum)
• flat wrack (Fucus spiralis)
• grass wrack (eelgrass)
• horn wrack (Flustra)
• knobbed wrack (Ascophyllum nodosum)
• knotted wrack (Ascophyllum nodosum)
• lady wrack (Fucus vesiculosus)
• notched wrack (Fucus serratus)
• serrated wrack (Fucus serratus)
• spiral wrack (Fucus spiralis)
• tidewrack
• toothed wrack (Fucus serratus)
• wrack line
• wrack zone

Translations

(archaic) remnant from a shipwreck as washed ashore, or the right to claim such items

• Spanish: pecio (es) m

any marine vegetation cast up on shore, especially seaweed of the genus Fucus

• French: goémon (fr) m
• Galician: carballa (gl) f
• Portuguese: algaço (pt) m
• Welsh: môr-wialen sg or f, morwiail f pl

weeds, vegetation, or rubbish floating on a river or pond

high, flying clouds; a rack

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Translations to be checked

• Esperanto: ^{(please verify)} fuko

Verb

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

1. (transitive, usually passive voice) To wreck, especially a ship.
2. Alternative form of rack (“to cause to suffer pain, etc.”)
   • 2024 July 26, “Fans rave as Celine Dion and a FLYING cauldron save washout Paris Olympics opening ceremony”, in dailymail.co.uk‎^[3]:

     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.

Usage notes

Frequently confused with rack (“torture; suffer pain”), though traditionally means “wreck”. Etymologically, wrack and ruin (“complete destruction”) and storm-wracked (“wrecked by a storm”) are the only terms that derive from wrack, rather than rack. However, in usage, forms such as nerve-wracking are common, and considered acceptable by some authorities; see usage notes for rack.

Conjugation

Conjugation of wrack

infinitive	(to) wrack
	present tense	past tense
1st-person singular	wrack	wracked
2nd-person singular	wrack, wrackest†	wracked, wrackedst†
3rd-person singular	wracks, wracketh†	wracked
plural	wrack
subjunctive	wrack	wracked
imperative	wrack	—
participles	wracking	wracked

^†Archaic or obsolete.

Derived terms

• storm-wracked

Translations

to wreck

References

rack — see rack

Anagrams

• crawk