wrack

[rak]

noun

1. wreck or wreckage.

2. damage or destruction.

   wrack and ruin.

3. a trace of something destroyed.

   leaving not a wrack behind.

4. seaweed or other vegetation cast on the shore.

verb (used with object)

1. to wreck.

   He wracked his car up on the river road.

wrack

¹

/ ræk /

noun

1. seaweed or other marine vegetation that is floating in the sea or has been cast ashore

2. any of various seaweeds of the genus Fucus, such as F. serratus ( serrated wrack )

3. literary

   1. a wreck or piece of wreckage

   2. a remnant or fragment of something destroyed

wrack

²

/ ræk /

noun

1. collapse or destruction (esp in the phrase wrack and ruin )

2. something destroyed or a remnant of such

verb

1. a variant spelling of rack 1

Usage

The use of the spelling wrack rather than rack in sentences such as she was wracked by grief or the country was wracked by civil war is very common but is thought by many people to be incorrect

Word History and Origins

Origin of wrack¹

First recorded before 900; Middle English wrak (noun), Old English wræc “vengeance, misery,” akin to wracu “vengeance, misery,” wrecan “to drive out, punish”; wreak

Word History and Origins

Origin of wrack¹

C14 (in the sense: a wrecked ship, wreckage, hence later applied to marine vegetation washed ashore): perhaps from Middle Dutch wrak wreckage; the term corresponds to Old English wræc _wrack ¹

Origin of wrack²

Old English wræc persecution, misery; related to Gothic wraka, Old Norse rāk. Compare _wreck , _wretch

Idioms and Phrases

see under rack.

Example Sentences

Since then the country - the poorest in the Americas - has been wracked by economic chaos, little functioning political control and increasingly violent gang warfare.

From BBC

Such a quake would be the largest simultaneous disaster in modern California history, with huge swaths of the state wracked by powerful seismic shaking all at once.

From Los Angeles Times

“It’s nerve wracking to watch him — you couldn’t get a better match for the fans, but I hated it,” Sinjin said.

From Los Angeles Times

For more than a decade Mali has been wracked by a deadly Islamist insurgency, as well as attacks from separatist movements.

From BBC

Years after the world has resumed some version of normal, the crushing wave of dying and dead that overwhelmed Robby’s emergency room during the pandemic has left him wracked with PTSD.

From Salon

Related Words

• decimate 
• torment 
• wreck