What's the difference between freak and wreak?

Freak


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To variegate; to checker; to streak.
  • (n.) A sudden causeless change or turn of the mind; a whim of fancy; a capricious prank; a vagary or caprice.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Freaks And Geeks was my thing, based on my experiences.
  • (2) Although she's been performing since 2000 – in the punk-cabaret duo the Dresden Dolls , in a controversial conjoined-twin mime act called Evelyn Evelyn (they wear a specially constructed two-person dress and have been castigated by disability groups for presenting conjoined twins as circus freaks, an accusation she denies) – in her new band, Amanda Palmer And The Grand Theft Orchestra , she's suddenly become a kind of phenomenon.
  • (3) Klitschko is a self-confessed control freak; so Fury was trying to rattle him out of his rhythm.
  • (4) 5.54pm BST It looks like the senate office buildings are returning to normal, just as the FREAK OUT party was getting exciting.
  • (5) You couldn't get much more bohemian than the music playing in this room of tiny round tables, first French crooner Serge Gainsbourg and then cabaret freak Scott Walker wailing of their obelisk-size pain.
  • (6) Over the summer his father, Jimmy, died from throat cancer , and his cousin, Hannah, was killed in a freak accident while on holiday.
  • (7) Although achilles tears are typically freak injuries, this hasn't stopped fans and media members alike from blaming Bryant's injuries on head coach Mike D'Antoni and his unwillingness, or inability, to get Bryant off the court for any significant amount of time.
  • (8) After almost 24 hours of being told I stank and generally being treated like a contagious freak, I was so grateful for these ministrations that I went to hug them.
  • (9) 1.23am GMT Red Sox 0 - Cardinals 1, top of the 4th Dustin Pedroia, quiet most of this postseason, is up to salvage anything here, it seems improbable that these Sox hitters can be rendered mute by Lance freaking Lynn, but so it goes.
  • (10) An African woman sold into slavery, Baartman was brought to London in 1810 as the "Hottentot Venus" and exhibited as a freak of nature in London and France.
  • (11) Sharknado, a satirical disaster film featuring man-eating sharks let loose on Los Angeles by a freak cyclone, premiered on SyFy in 2013 and became a cult hit, gaining some traction later as a theatrical release.
  • (12) Yes, yes, Richard Gere in American Gigolo, Cary Grant in North by Northwest, Steve McQueen in Bullitt, Colin Firth and Daniel Craig in whatever, blah blah freaking blah.
  • (13) It was common for people to insist I must be Latvian, as they were so freaked out by the idea of meeting someone from England.
  • (14) Nor is it an excuse for children to demand the hiring of a freaking limo.
  • (15) The Interview will become a global must-see and their Soviet-style control-freak instincts will look silly and culpable.
  • (16) But the sale of the house in Chester was held up for several months by a freak accident, a burst water main under the foundations which flooded the ground floor and made it uninhabitable.
  • (17) Where other sources of Georgian entertainment, from public dissections and freak shows to Bedlam and the Foundling Hospital, have, for one reason or another, fallen by the wayside, the exhibition of exotic beasts remains popular enough for someone such as Gill, a self-described “animal nutritionist”, to make a fortune out of it.
  • (18) This alternative economic activity, which often looked like a freak show – it attracted young people in.
  • (19) SPOILER ALERT: This blog discusses plot points from Freak Show, the fourth season of American Horror Story.
  • (20) Little ones might freak out a bit at the wax characters and the gloomy dark but this is a fun way to bring a fairly weighty school text to life.

Wreak


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To reck; to care.
  • (v. t.) To revenge; to avenge.
  • (v. t.) To execute in vengeance or passion; to inflict; to hurl or drive; as, to wreak vengeance on an enemy.
  • (v. t.) Revenge; vengeance; furious passion; resentment.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Even digital news, which has wreaked havoc on all other news, finds the advertising revenues that support it dwindling (or failing to grow).
  • (2) Last month, for example, the Daily Telegraph's Peter Oborne bemoaned their "devastating" fate, in a piece worth quoting at reasonable length, if only to prove that the idea of an out-of-touch elite blithely wreaking havoc is not the preserve of hard-bitten lefties.
  • (3) It was a fairly valiant attempt from Manchester United , but as their players grew leggy from chasing shadows, they dropped deep and let Arjen Robben and Franck Ribery wreak their unique brand of havoc.
  • (4) Rajoy’s hope is that Sánchez’s failure in the upcoming investiture vote wreaks havoc inside the PSOE, potentially opening the door to a scenario that might favour him.
  • (5) Hardly any development funding for implementation has been disbursed.” 68 million children likely to die by 2030 from preventable causes, report says Read more Dr David Richmond, president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, said the series offered a “wake-up call to governments worldwide to make faster progress in reducing the number of stillbirths, which wreak untold damage on families, care givers and communities”.
  • (6) Six years later, as the cultural revolution wreaked havoc, young Xi was dispatched to the dusty, impoverished north-western province of Shaanxi to "learn from the masses".
  • (7) Chief executive John Walden said retailers have learned their lesson from last year’s Black Friday sales bonanza, which wreaked havoc on the high street and hit shops’ profits in the run-up to Christmas.
  • (8) Walk more Saño, who shot to fame in 2013 for breaking down in tears and fasting for two weeks at UN climate talks after typhoon Haiyan wreaked havoc in his country, is currently walking 1,500km from Rome to this year’s conference in Paris.
  • (9) These and other voters could also be attracted to the AfD by media reports that a strong showing for the party could wreak havoc with parliamentary arithmetic.
  • (10) But the US, Israel and other western spy agencies have also spent years slipping faulty parts into black market consignments of equipment heading to Iran – each designed to wreak havoc inside the delicate machinery requirement for enrichment.
  • (11) On the Apollo missions, lunar dust got everywhere – the crews inhaled it and got it in their eyes, and it wreaked mechanical havoc – and on Mars the dust is even more problematic, because it is highly oxidised, chemically reactive, electrically charged and windblown.
  • (12) It's also the product of the wider crisis of neoliberal capitalism that first erupted in the banking system five years ago and has since wreaked havoc on public finances, jobs, services and living standards throughout the western world.
  • (13) The tragedy is that there is a growing number of people in the Labour Party – perhaps even Ed Miliband – who believe that they can manipulate industrial unrest to wreak revenge for their electoral defeats.
  • (14) Accepting that a Greek default was now impossible to avoid, EU governments are hoping it will be brief and "selective", not triggering a "credit event" on the financial markets that could wreak havoc on the credit default swap markets, also in the US, and unleash contagion.
  • (15) The tobacco industry implies that the demise of tobacco consumption would wreak havoc with the economy.
  • (16) There wasn't some evil plan hatched behind closed doors to wreak socio-economic havoc.
  • (17) Photograph: Alderac Entertainment Group King of Tokyo Based on the public-domain dice game Yahtzee, King of Tokyo transforms players into giant monsters competing to wreak destruction on the Japanese capital.
  • (18) As temperatures warm,” he said, “things on higher elevations get warmer and things on lower elevations move up.” Bark beetles, once killed by cold winters, are now surviving and wreaking havoc with trees.
  • (19) The south-east of England is most at risk from these invaders which can prey on native British freshwater species, substantially alter the ecology of waterways and wreak economic damage by blocking water pipes, according to a new study by a University of Cambridge team.
  • (20) Rain and wind continued to wreak havoc across the UK this weekend, with south-west England and Wales battered by gusts of up to 71mph.