wrest
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: rĕst
ipa: /ɹɛst/
rhymes: -ɛst
homophone: rest
Forms: form: wrests
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: examples: text: Whereas therefore it is concluded out of theſe ſo weak Premiſſes, that the retaining of divers things in the Church of England, which other Reformed Churches have caſt out, muſt needs argue that we do not well, unleſs we can ſhew that they have done ill; what needed this wreſt to draw out from on an accuſation of forein Churches?
ref: 1676, Richard Hooker, Izaak Walton, “Book IV. Concerning Their Third Assertion, that Our Form of Church-Polity is Corrupted with Popish Orders, Rites and Ceremonies, Banished out of Certain Reformed Churches, whose Example therein We Ought to have Followed”, in The Works of that Learned and Judicious Divine, Mr. Richard Hooker, in Eight Books of Ecclesiastical Polity, Compleated out of His Own Manuscripts; with Several Other Treatises by the Same Author, and an Account of His Life and Death [by Izaak Walton], London: Printed by R. White, for Rob[ert] Scott, Tho[mas] Basset, John Wright and Rich[ard] Chiswell, and are to be sold by Robert Boulter at the Turks Head in Cornhil, →OCLC, page 181:
glosses: The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.
examples: text: The Harpe. […] A harper with his wreſt maye tune the harpe wrong / Mys tunying of an Inſtrument ſhal hurt a true ſonge
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 Saint Dunstones Churche 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:
text: The Minstrel […] wore round his neck a silver chain, by which hung the wrest, or key, with which he tuned his harp.
ref: 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XIII, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 323:
topics: entertainment
lifestyle
music
glosses: A key to tune a stringed instrument.
examples: text: Adowne he keſt it with ſo puiſſant wreſt, / That backe againe it did alofte rebowned, / And gaue againſt his mother earth a gronefull ſownd.
ref: 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto XI”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, page 359:
glosses: Active or motive power.
glosses: Ellipsis of saw wrest (“a hand tool for setting the teeth of a saw, determining the width of the kerf”); a saw set.
Derived terms: saw wrest
wrest block
wrest-harrow
wrest pin
wrest plank