wrest
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: rĕst
ipa: /ɹɛst/
rhymes: -ɛst
homophone: rest
Forms: form: wrests
form: wresting
form: wrested
form: wrested
Etymology: From Middle English wresten, wrasten, wræsten, from Old English wrǣstan (“to twist forcibly, wrench”), from Proto-Germanic *wraistijaną, (compare Proto-Germanic *wrīhaną (“to turn, wind; to cover, envelop”), *wrīþaną (“to weave, twist”), Old Norse reista (“to bend, twist”)), from a derivative of Proto-Indo-European *wreiḱ-, *wreyḱ- (“to bend, twist”), *wreyt- (“to bend”). See also writhe, wry.
The noun is derived from the verb.
Senses: glosses: To pull or twist violently.
examples: text: He wrested the remote control from my grasp and changed the channel.
text: [D]id not ſhe / Of Timna [Delilah] firſt betray me, and reveal / The ſecret wreſted from me in her highth / Of Nuptial Love proteſt, carrying it ſtrait / To them who had corrupted her, my Spies, / And Rivals?
ref: 1671, John Milton, “Samson Agonistes, […].”, in Paradise Regain’d. A Poem. In IV Books. To which is Added, Samson Agonistes, London: […] J[ohn] M[acock] for John Starkey […], →OCLC, page 42:
text: Does the devil strive to keep Christ out of men's hearts, and to preserve his own influence over them, by the weapon of ignorance? Christ wrests it from him by letting in a stream of light.
ref: 1858, James Foote, “Lecture LVIII. Luke XI. 14–26.”, in Lectures on the Gospel According to Luke. … In Two Volumes, 3rd edition, volume I, Edinburgh: Ogle & Murray, and Oliver & Boyd; London: Hamilton, Adams, & Co., →OCLC, page 689:
text: Despite this short shrift from descendants and historians, the Jewish peddler was a valued person in rural life. Besides bringing much-needed goods and a break for those exhausted from plowing or laboriously wresting turpentine from pine trees, the visiting peddler was often respected by those God-fearing southerners for what they believed was his direct connection to the Old Testament stories they revered.
ref: 2015, Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, “A New Life and a New Cause in Dixie”, in Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights, Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, →ISBN, page 103:
glosses: To obtain by pulling or violent force.
examples: text: [S]he was one of your ſoft ſpoken, canting, whining hypocrites, who with a truly jeſuitical art, could wreſt evil out of the moſt inoffenſive thought, word, look or action; [...]
ref: 1765, Catherine Jemmat, The Memoirs of Mrs. Catherine Jemmat, Daughter of the Late Admiral Yeo, of Plymouth. Written by Herself, 2nd edition, volume I, London: Printed for the author, at Charing-Cross, →OCLC, page 145:
text: But the arrival of the new members of council from England, naturally had the effect of uniting the old servants of the [East India] Company. [John] Clavering, [George Henry] Monson, and [Philip] Francis formed the majority. They instantly wrested the government out of the hands of [Warren] Hastings; [...]
ref: 1841 October, [Thomas Babington Macaulay], “Art. V.—Memoirs of the Life of Warren Hastings, first Governor-General of Bengal. Compiled from Original Papers, by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, M.A. 3 vols. 8vo. London: 1841.”, in The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal, volume LXXIV, number CXLIX, Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes; for Longman, Orme, Brown, Green, & Longmans, London; and Adam and Charles Black, Edinburgh, →OCLC, page 186:
text: There was one of the tribe of Tarzan who questioned his authority, and that was Terkoz, the son of Tublat, but he so feared the keen knife and the deadly arrows of his new lord that he confined the manifestation of his objections to petty disobediences and irritating mannerisms; Tarzan knew, however, that he but waited his opportunity to wrest the kingship from him by some sudden stroke of treachery, and so he was ever on his guard against surprise.
ref: 1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as “Man’s Reason”, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert] L[evi] Burt Company, June 1914, →OCLC, page 145:
glosses: To seize.
examples: text: And I beſeech you / Wreſt once the Law to your authority, / To do a great right, do a little wrong, / And curbe this cruell deuill of his will.
ref: c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene i]:
text: Thou ſhalt not wreſt the iudgement of thy poore in his cauſe.
ref: 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 23:6:
text: And herein is especially displayed the profound, the merciful, and at the same time the righteous discrimination between men, equally involved in ruin; or that decree of election and reprobation, revealed in the Word of God, which, though men of perverse, impure, and unstable minds wrest it to their own destruction, yet to holy and pious souls affords unspeakable consolation.
ref: 1619, Philip Schaff, “The Canons of the Synod of Dort, as Held by the Reformed [Dutch] Church in America. [First Head of Doctrine. Of Divine Predestination.]”, in The Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical Notes. … In Three Volumes, 4th revised and enlarged edition, volume III (The Evangelical Protestant Creeds, with Translations), New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square, published 1877, →OCLC, article VI, page 582:
text: [I]n the ſeveral Ages of the Church theſe Wretches ſucceſſively have been ſome of the moſt notorious Oppoſers of the Divinity of our Saviour, and would undoubtedly have overthrown the Belief of it in the World, could they by all their Arts of wreſting, corrupting, and falſe interpreting the holy Text, have brought the Scriptures to ſpeak for them; which they could never yet do.
ref: 1665 December 25, Robert South, “Jesus of Nazareth Proved the True and Only Promised Messiah. In a Sermon Preached at St. Mary’s, Oxon, before the University, on Christmas-Day, 1665”, in Twelve Sermons upon Several Subjects and Occasions, 5th edition, volume III, London: Printed by H. Clark, for Jonah Bowyer, at the Rose, the West-End of St. Paul's Church-Yard, published 1722, →OCLC, page 295:
glosses: To distort, to pervert, to twist.
examples: text: The Harpe. A harpe geueth ſounde as it is ſette / The harper may wreſt it vntunablye
ref: 1503 July, William Cornishe [i.e., William Cornysh], “In the Fleete Made by Me William Cornishe otherwise Called Nyshwhete Chapelman with the Most Famose and Noble Kyng Henry the VII. His Reygne the XIX. Yere the Moneth of July. A Treatise betwene Trouth, and Information.”, in John Skelton, edited by J[ohn] S[tow], Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate, Imprinted at London: In Fletestreate, neare vnto St Dunstan-in-the-West by Thomas Marshe, published 1568, →OCLC; republished as Pithy Pleasaunt and Profitable Workes of Maister Skelton, Poete Laureate to King Henry the VIIIth, London: Printed for C. Davis in Pater-noster Row, 1736, →OCLC, page 290:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: To tune with a wrest, or key.
Derived terms: outwrest
overwrest
wrester
Related terms: wrestle