wrack /ˈræk/



 Wrack n. A thin, flying cloud; a rack.


 Wrack, v. t. To rack; to torment.  [R.]


 Wrack, n.
 1. Wreck; ruin; destruction.  [Obs.] --Chaucer.  “A world devote to universal wrack.”
 2. Any marine vegetation cast up on the shore, especially plants of the genera Fucus, Laminaria, and Zostera, which are most abundant on northern shores.
 3. Bot. Coarse seaweed of any kind.
 Wrack grass, or Grass wrack Bot., eelgrass.


 Wrack, v. t. To wreck.  [Obs.]

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 Wreck, n.  [Written also wrack.]
 1. 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.
 2. 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.
 3. 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.
 4. 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.
 5. Law Goods, etc., which, after a shipwreck, are cast upon the land by the sea.


 wrack
      n 1: dried seaweed especially that cast ashore
      2: the destruction or collapse of something; "wrack and ruin"
         [syn: rack]
      3: growth of marine vegetation especially of the large forms
         such as rockweeds and kelp [syn: sea wrack]
      v : smash or break forcefully; "The kid busted up the car" [syn:
           bust up, wreck]