Crossword clues for wrack
wrack
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Wreck \Wreck\, n. [OE. wrak, AS. wr[ae]c exile, persecution, misery, from wrecan to drive out, punish; akin to D. wrak, adj., damaged, brittle, n., a wreck, wraken to reject, throw off, Icel. rek a thing drifted ashore, Sw. vrak refuse, a wreck, Dan. vrag. See Wreak, v. t., and cf. Wrack a marine plant.] [Written also wrack.]
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The destruction or injury of a vessel by being cast on shore, or on rocks, or by being disabled or sunk by the force of winds or waves; shipwreck.
Hard and obstinate As is a rock amidst the raging floods, 'Gainst which a ship, of succor desolate, Doth suffer wreck, both of herself and goods.
--Spenser. -
Destruction or injury of anything, especially by violence; ruin; as, the wreck of a railroad train.
The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.
--Addison.Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst the wreck of its political life.
--J. R. Green. The ruins of a ship stranded; a ship dashed against rocks or land, and broken, or otherwise rendered useless, by violence and fracture; as, they burned the wreck.
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The remain of anything ruined or fatally injured.
To the fair haven of my native home, The wreck of what I was, fatigued I come.
--Cowper. (Law) Goods, etc., which, after a shipwreck, are cast upon the land by the sea.
--Bouvier.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
late 14c., "wrecked ship, shipwreck," probably from Middle Dutch wrak "wreck," from Proto-Germanic *wrakaz-, from root *wreg- "to push, shove drive" (see wreak). The root sense perhaps is "that which is cast ashore." Sense perhaps influenced by Old English wræc "misery, punishment," and wrecan "to punish, drive out" (source of modern wreak). The meaning "damage, disaster, destruction" (in wrack and ruin) is from c.1400, from the Old English word, but conformed in spelling to this one. Sense of "seaweed, etc., cast up on shore" is recorded from 1510s, probably an alteration of wreck (n.) in this sense (mid-15c.). Wrack, wreck, rack and wretch were utterly tangled in spelling and somewhat in sense in Middle and early modern English.
Wiktionary
Etymology 1 n. 1 (context archaic dialectal or literary English) vengeance; revenge; persecution; punishment; consequence; trouble. 2 (context archaic except in dialects English) ruin; destruction. 3 The remains; a wreck. vb. 1 (context UK dialectal transitive English) To execute vengeance; avenge. 2 (context UK dialectal transitive English) To worry; tease; torment. Etymology 2
n. 1 (context archaic English) Remnant from a shipwreck as washed ashore, or the right to claim such items. 2 Any marine vegetation cast up on shore, especially seaweed of the genus ''Fucus''. 3 weeds, vegetation or rubbish floating on a river or pond. 4 A high flying cloud; a rack. vb. 1 (context transitive English) To wreck, especially a ship (''usually in passive''). 2 (alternative form of rack dot=, English) To cause to suffer pain, etc.
WordNet
Wikipedia
Wrack is part of the common names of several species of seaweed in the family Fucaceae. It may also refer more generally to any seaweeds or seagrasses that wash up on beaches and may accumulate in the wrack zone.
It consists largely of species of Fucus — brown seaweeds with flat branched ribbon-like fronds, characterized in F. serratus by a saw-toothed margin and in F. vesiculosus, another common species, by bearing air-bladders. Another component of sea wrack may be seagrasses such as Zostera marina a marine flowering plant with bright green long narrow grass-like leaves. Posidonia australis, which occurs sub-tidally on the southern coasts of Australia, sheds its older ribbon-like leaf blades in winter, resulting in thick accumulations along more sheltered shorelines.
- "Bladder wrack", Fucus vesiculosus
- "Channelled wrack", Pelvetia canaliculata
- "Knotted wrack", Ascophyllum nodosum
- "Spiral wrack" or "flat wrack", Fucus spiralis
- "Toothed wrack" or "serrated wrack", Fucus serratus
Historically wrack was used for making manure, and for making "kelp", a form of potash.
Wrack may refer to:
- wrack (mathematics), a concept in knot theory
- wrack (seaweed), several species of seaweed
- Wrack, a novel by James Bradley (Australian writer)
- Darren Wrack (born 1976), English footballer
- Matt Wrack (born 1962), British firefighter and trade unionist
- Wrack, the leading broodmare sire in North America in 1935
- Wrack (video game), A first person shooter video game made by Final Boss Entertainment
Wrack is a single-player, cel shaded first-person shooter video game developed and published by Final Boss Entertainment for Microsoft Windows. The full release of the game was on September 30, 2014. The game was mostly inspired by games as Doom and Mega Man.
Usage examples of "wrack".
Above the fog banks a wrack of cloud had gathered, the aerophane was coated with a glittering mist.
Then the memory passed and Alman, weak from privations and older than his years, hunched in on himself in a series of wracking coughs.
Wracked by jealousy, Cornelia had become the pawn of Asterion, the ancient Minotaur and archenemy of the Game, and had murdered Genvissa just as she and Brutus were about to complete the Game.
Father Cesare sat his hefty body upon his chair once more, his eyes wincing in pain as the bones wracked painfully together.
Nodding donkeys walked up the cliff stair carrying panniers filled with kelp and dulse, wrack, oar weed, and laver.
The fasciculations rapidly spread to other muscles until her body became wracked by clonic jerks.
He wrapped his arms around Iral and held on, letting the sobs wrack his body, letting the fear and pain leak away with his tears.
It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture.
Thy silver passages of sacred lands, With news of Sepulchre and Dolorous Hill, Canst thou be he that, yester-sunset warm, Purple with Paynim rage and wrack desire, Dashed ravening out of a dusty lair of Storm, Harried the west, and set the world on fire?
Wracker sat on the edge of the desk and stared at the physicist for what seemed to Pissant to be an awfully long time.
She saw the bottom of the pool rise up, while her diaphragm wracked for air and her arms flapped against the grip.
A shudder of release wracked my pain-stricken body as I uttered the fearful words.
His arms came around my neck, chokingly tight, and I held him while he sobbed, raw and gasping, his entire body wracked with the force of it.
His face was wracked in a grimace of pain, and his arm stretched taut in its socket.
On the shore, Hyacinthe was doubled and panting, each breath wracked with pain.