# wrack
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /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)
* (archaic, dialectal or literary) Vengeance; revenge; persecution; punishment; consequence; trouble.
* (archaic, except in dialects) Ruin; destruction.
** c. 1593, Christopher Marlowe, Hero and Leander‎, page 7:Therefore, in sign her treasure suffered wrack, Since Hero's time hath half the world been black.
* 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
#### 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.

### Etymology 2

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)
* (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.
** 1892, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes‎, 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

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

#### Verb

wrack (third-person singular simple present wracks, present participle wracking, simple past and past participle wracked or wrackt)
* (transitive, usually passive voice) To wreck, especially a ship.
* 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: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

| infinitive | (to) wrack | (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 | wracked |
| subjunctive | wrack | wracked |
| imperative | wrack | — |
| participles | wracking | wracked |
$^†$Archaic or obsolete.

##### Derived terms

* storm-wracked

##### Translations
### References

* ↑ 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.

### Anagrams

* crawk