WRACK
What does "WRACK" mean?
Destruction or ruin; also seaweed or wreckage cast ashore by the sea.
Meanings
- Destruction, downfall, or ruin, especially in the phrase 'wrack and ruin'. Years of neglect had brought the estate to wrack and ruin.
- Seaweed or other marine vegetation washed up or growing along the shore. The tideline was thick with bladder wrack and broken shells. technical
- Wreckage of a ship or other debris driven ashore by the sea. After the storm the beach was littered with wrack. archaic
- To wreck, ruin, or torment (a variant of 'rack', as in 'wrack one's brains'). He wracked his brains for the name and came up empty.
Did you know?
- The seaweed called bladderwrack carries this very word in its name: 'wrack' once meant any marine growth or wreckage the sea drove ashore, long before it mostly meant 'ruin'.
Word origin
From Middle English 'wrak', related to Old English 'wraec' (misery, persecution) and to 'wreck'; the seaweed sense and the ruin sense both descend from a root meaning 'driven, cast away'.
Remember it
WRACK keeps the silent W of 'wreck' and 'wrong' - things gone bad on the shore of the alphabet.
A little poem
Storm spends itself out-
the tide lays its plunder down:
weed, plank, and lost rope.
haiku
What it teaches
The sea calls the same thing wrack whether it is treasure or ruin; the shore decides which by what it keeps.
Quick facts
What does WRACK mean?
Destruction or ruin; also seaweed or wreckage cast ashore by the sea.
Is WRACK a valid word?
Yes — WRACK is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is WRACK?
WRACK has 5 letters and 1 syllable.
Where does WRACK come from?
From Middle English 'wrak', related to Old English 'wraec' (misery, persecution) and to 'wreck'; the seaweed sense and the ruin sense both descend from a root meaning 'driven, cast away'.
What can WRACK teach us?
The sea calls the same thing wrack whether it is treasure or ruin; the shore decides which by what it keeps.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.