German

Noun

Wrack n ‎(genitive Wracks or Wrackes, plural Wracks or Wracke)

1. wreck (e.g. ship, airplane)

   Das Wrack des Schiffs wurde mit Spezialkränen geborgen.‎

   The wreck of the ship was recovered with specialized cranes.

2. wreck (physically and/or mentally unstable person)

   Während meiner Grippe war ich ein Wrack.‎

   During my flu, I was a wreck.

   Nach zwanzig Jahren Saufen war er ein Wrack.‎

   After twenty years of hard drinking, he was a wreck.

Usage notes

• The normal plural is Wracks. The form Wracke is rare.

Declension

English

Noun

wrack ‎(plural wracks)

1. (archaic, dialectal or literary) Vengeance; revenge; persecution; punishment; consequence; trouble.
2. (archaic, except in dialects) Ruin; destruction.
3. The remains; a wreck.

Derived terms

• wrack and ruin

Translations

Verb

wrack ‎(third-person singular simple present wracks, present participle wracking, simple past and past participle wracked)

1. (Britain dialectal, transitive) To execute vengeance; avenge.
2. (Britain dialectal, transitive) To worry; tease; torment.

Etymology 2

From Middle Dutch (and Dutch) wrak (cognate with German Wrack, Old Norse rek, Danish vrag, Swedish vrak, Old English wræc). Compare Gothic 𐍅𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 ‎(wrikan), 𐍅𐍂𐌰𐌺𐌾𐌰𐌽 ‎(wrakjan, “persecute”), Old Norse reka ‎(“drive”).

Noun

wrack ‎(plural wracks)

1. (archaic) 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.
   • 1892, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2011:

     A dull wrack was drifting slowly across the sky, and a star or two twinkled dimly here and there through the rifts of the clouds.

Derived terms

• channelled wrack
• flat wrack
• spiral wrack

Translations

Verb

wrack ‎(third-person singular simple present wracks, present participle wracking, simple past and past participle wracked)

1. (transitive) To wreck, especially a ship (usually in passive).
2. Alternative form of rack To cause to suffer pain, etc.

Usage notes

Frequently confused with rack ‎(“torture; suffer pain”), though traditionally means “wreck”. Etymologically, wrack and ruin ‎(“complete destruction”) and storm-wracked ‎(“wrecked by a storm”) are the only terms that derive from wrack, rather than rack. However in usage forms such as nerve-wracking are common, and considered acceptable by some authorities; see usage notes for rack.

Derived terms

• storm-wracked

Translations

Anagrams

• crawk