rack
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: algebra
ball-games
billiards
business
caving
climbing
engineering
firearms
gambling
games
government
hobbies
human-sciences
lifestyle
mathematics
mechanical
mechanical-engineering
military
mining
mysticism
natural-sciences
nautical
occult
philosophy
physical-sciences
politics
pool
rail-transport
railways
sciences
snooker
sports
tools
transport
war
weaponry
Etymology: From Middle English rakke, rekke, from Middle Dutch rac, recke, rec (Dutch rek), see rekken.
Inflected forms:
form: racks
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: racks
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: racking
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: racked
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: racked
pos: verb
tags: past
form: no-table-tags
pos: verb
tags: table-tags
form: glossary
pos: verb
tags: inflection-template
form: rack
pos: verb
tags: infinitive
form: rack
pos: verb
tags: first-person
present
singular
form: racked
pos: verb
tags: first-person
past
singular
form: rack
pos: verb
tags: present
second-person
singular
form: rackest
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
second-person
singular
form: racked
pos: verb
tags: past
second-person
singular
form: rackedst
pos: verb
tags: archaic
past
second-person
singular
form: racks
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: racketh
pos: verb
tags: archaic
present
singular
third-person
form: racked
pos: verb
tags: past
singular
third-person
form: rack
pos: verb
tags: plural
present
form: racked
pos: verb
tags: past
plural
form: rack
pos: verb
tags: present
subjunctive
form: racked
pos: verb
tags: past
subjunctive
form: rack
pos: verb
tags: imperative
present
form: -
pos: verb
tags: imperative
past
form: racking
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: racked
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
Senses:
gloss: A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other.
pos: noun
gloss: Any of various kinds of frame for holding luggage or other objects on a vehicle or vessel.
pos: noun
gloss: A device, incorporating a ratchet, used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.
pos: noun
tags: historical
examples: Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack, / Where men enforced do speak anything.
During the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity.
gloss: A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes.
pos: noun
gloss: A bunk.
pos: noun
tags: especially
slang
examples: Chief Stevens approached my rack and repeatedly ordered me to vacate my rack and report to the working party.
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.
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.
gloss: Sleep.
pos: noun
tags: broadly
slang
uncountable
examples: Do I have to do this now? Like, I really need to get some rack.
gloss: A distaff.
pos: noun
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
examples: 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.
The ladder-type Riggenbach rack is the one in use on both systems.
gloss: 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.
pos: noun
gloss: A cranequin, a mechanism including a rack, pinion and pawl, providing both mechanical advantage and a ratchet, used to bend and cock a crossbow.
pos: noun
gloss: A set of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).
pos: noun
gloss: A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs.
pos: noun
examples: I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher's yesterday.
gloss: A bone of a horse.
pos: noun
tags: obsolete
examples: 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.
Racks, the bones of a dead horse. Term used by horse-slaughterers.
gloss: A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.
pos: noun
gloss: A plastic tray used for holding and moving chips.
pos: noun
gloss: A woman's breasts.
pos: noun
tags: slang
vulgar
gloss: A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded.
pos: noun
examples: rappel rack
abseil rack
gloss: A climber's set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, carabiners, nuts, Friends, etc.
pos: noun
tags: slang
examples: I used almost a full rack on the second pitch.
gloss: A grate on which bacon is laid.
pos: noun
gloss: A set with a distributive binary operation whose action on the set is invertible.
pos: noun
gloss: A thousand dollars, especially if the proceeds are from a crime.
pos: noun
tags: slang
gloss: To place in or hang on a rack.
pos: verb
gloss: To torture (someone) on the rack.
pos: verb
examples: He was racked and miserably tormented.
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.
gloss: To cause (someone) to suffer pain.
pos: verb
examples: Vaunting aloud but racked with deep despair.
gloss: To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.
pos: verb
tags: figuratively
examples: Try what my credit can in Venice do; / That shall be racked even to the uttermost.
The landlords there most shamefully rack their tenants.
Grant that I may never rack a Scripture Similie, beyond the true intent thereof.
gloss: To alternately concatenate two words to magical effect.
pos: verb
tags: obsolete
examples: Foꝛ when we heare one racke the name of God,/Abiure the ſcriptures, and his Sauiour Chꝛiſt...
gloss: To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.
pos: verb
gloss: To strike in the testicles.
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
examples: 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!)
gloss: To shoplift (especially in a megastore), often by taking off of a rack.
pos: verb
tags: slang
examples: 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])
gloss: To take that which belongs to another, without regard of right or permission.
pos: verb
tags: broadly
gloss: To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.
pos: verb
gloss: To move the slide bar on a shotgun in order to chamber the next round.
pos: verb
gloss: To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.
pos: verb
gloss: To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.
pos: verb
gloss: To tend to shear a structure (that is, force it to bend, lean, or move in different directions at different points).
pos: verb
examples: 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.
Derived words: armrack
at rack and manger
autorack
barbell rack
bicycle rack
bike rack
birack
bomb rack
bookrack
buy the rack
cheese rack
clothes rack
coatrack
coat rack
coat-rack
cycle rack
dish rack
dishrack
drying rack
Eurorack
gunrack
hat-rack
hatrack
hat rack
hayrack
hitchrack
hitch rack
hit the rack
hot rack
live at rack and manger
luggage rack
meat rack
multirack
nerve rack
nerve-rack
off-the-rack
on the rack
out of rack
oven rack
penrack
pipe rack
power rack
rack and pinion
rack and snail
rackarock
rack bar
rackboard
rackful
rack jobber
rackless
racklike
rackmaster
rackmount
rack-mountable
rack-mounted
rackne
rackoid
rack railway
rack rate
rack-rent
rack rent
rack-renter
rack rod
racktacular
racktastic
rack time
rack unit
rackware
rackwork
rape rack
rib-rack
roof rack
segment rack
spice rack
squat rack
subrack
toast rack
trash rack
washrack
weight rack
wine rack
nerve-racking
overrack
pain-racked
rackable
racker
rack off
rack one's brain
rack one's brains
rack out
rerack
tap, rack, bang
tap, rack, go
unrack
Translations: