What's the difference between rack and tack?

Rack


Definition:

  • (n.) Same as Arrack.
  • (n.) The neck and spine of a fore quarter of veal or mutton.
  • (n.) A wreck; destruction.
  • (n.) Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapor in the sky.
  • (v. i.) To fly, as vapor or broken clouds.
  • (v.) To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace; -- said of a horse.
  • (n.) A fast amble.
  • (v. t.) To draw off from the lees or sediment, as wine.
  • (a.) An instrument or frame used for stretching, extending, retaining, or displaying, something.
  • (a.) An engine of torture, consisting of a large frame, upon which the body was gradually stretched until, sometimes, the joints were dislocated; -- formerly used judicially for extorting confessions from criminals or suspected persons.
  • (a.) An instrument for bending a bow.
  • (a.) A grate on which bacon is laid.
  • (a.) A frame or device of various construction for holding, and preventing the waste of, hay, grain, etc., supplied to beasts.
  • (a.) A frame on which articles are deposited for keeping or arranged for display; as, a clothes rack; a bottle rack, etc.
  • (a.) A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes; -- called also rack block. Also, a frame to hold shot.
  • (a.) A frame or table on which ores are separated or washed.
  • (a.) A frame fitted to a wagon for carrying hay, straw, or grain on the stalk, or other bulky loads.
  • (a.) A distaff.
  • (a.) A bar with teeth on its face, or edge, to work with those of a wheel, pinion, or worm, which is to drive it or be driven by it.
  • (a.) That which is extorted; exaction.
  • (v. t.) To extend by the application of force; to stretch or strain; specifically, to stretch on the rack or wheel; to torture by an engine which strains the limbs and pulls the joints.
  • (v. t.) To torment; to torture; to affect with extreme pain or anguish.
  • (v. t.) To stretch or strain, in a figurative sense; hence, to harass, or oppress by extortion.
  • (v. t.) To wash on a rack, as metals or ore.
  • (v. t.) To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) More than 250 borrowers contacted the Guardian to tell us how and why they borrowed and how their debts racked up.
  • (2) When the two sides played here 77 days earlier Stoke had racked up a 5-0 lead by half-time, the first time that had happened to Liverpool since 1976, but this time Hughes’s attackers had no delicacy around the penalty area.
  • (3) In one clothes shop, with racks of discounted Calvin Klein and DKNY, the manager, Sav, explains what's happened: "In this crisis, the middle classes have been hollowed out."
  • (4) But Nel said that for Steenkamp to have fallen on to the rack, given she was found with her head slumped over the toilet, she would have had to have got up.
  • (5) Around 50 suburban Chicago police departments and sheriff’s offices assisted, racking up more than $300,000 in overtime and other costs, according to an analysis that the Daily Herald newspaper published in early October.
  • (6) Against small diurnal fluctuations, stable vertical gradients (about 1 degree C between tops and bottoms of racks) were observed among one hour averages of room air temperatures.
  • (7) TfL has tried to minimise congestion by issuing permits for roadworks but said it had encountered a “repeat offender” in BT, which has racked up thousands of pounds in fines.
  • (8) The prospect of further ­demonstrations and strikes has raised fears of social unrest in a country that has been racked by street violence for the past 18 months.
  • (9) The second biggest YouTube channel in July 2014 was DisneyCollector, with its collection of toy-unboxing videos racking up 268m views in the month, putting it ahead of musician Shakira’s 226.6m views.
  • (10) Contact time (in seconds) to a circular metal rack positioned in the center of the animal activity monitor was also recorded as goal-directed exploratory activity.
  • (11) The spark for the longest-running protest in modern Tunisian history was lit on 17 December in the town of Sidi Bouzid, in the rural interior of Tunisia, a region of olive groves and agriculture which is racked by vast unemployment, repression and poverty a world away from the riches of the Tunisian tourist coast and the propaganda of Tunisia's "economic miracle".
  • (12) Removal of a cage from the rack and getting out a rat caused increase in plasma concentrations of corticosterone in its remaining cage mates.
  • (13) For example, the Pacers lost 107-97 , at home on Tuesday, in a game where their starting center Roy Hibbert's disappearing act reached nearly-comical levels as he racked up 0 points, 0 rebounds, 1 meager assist and four personal fouls in 12 minutes of playing time.
  • (14) Adoboli racked up the giant losses undetected through three means, Wass said.
  • (15) Certain smears, such as from semen or from serous fluids where malignancy is suspected or known, must be stained on separate racks.
  • (16) That enthusiasm for elegant, understated clothing and bags has paid off, as Prada has bucked the downturn to open stores around the world – 63 in the year to last September – and rack up €409m (£352m) in profit in the first three quarters of 2012, a huge rise of 50% year on year, boosted by an increase of 41% in Asian sales.
  • (17) At any other moment, Chilcot would have been the all-consuming subject of national debate for days or even weeks, with Blair on the rack.
  • (18) Over the next few years, he racked up a series of successful expeditions to peaks in the Himalayas and elsewhere, including in 1983 the first ascent of the south face of Annapurna II, just shy of 8,000m.
  • (19) Utensil drying racks were found in 56.0% of the households.
  • (20) A film based on a smutty book that now litters the racks of every last charity shop.

Tack


Definition:

  • (n.) A stain; a tache.
  • (n.) A peculiar flavor or taint; as, a musty tack.
  • (n.) A small, short, sharp-pointed nail, usually having a broad, flat head.
  • (n.) That which is attached; a supplement; an appendix. See Tack, v. t., 3.
  • (v. t.) A rope used to hold in place the foremost lower corners of the courses when the vessel is closehauled (see Illust. of Ship); also, a rope employed to pull the lower corner of a studding sail to the boom.
  • (v. t.) The part of a sail to which the tack is usually fastened; the foremost lower corner of fore-and-aft sails, as of schooners (see Illust. of Sail).
  • (v. t.) The direction of a vessel in regard to the trim of her sails; as, the starboard tack, or port tack; -- the former when she is closehauled with the wind on her starboard side; hence, the run of a vessel on one tack; also, a change of direction.
  • (v. t.) A contract by which the use of a thing is set, or let, for hire; a lease.
  • (v. t.) Confidence; reliance.
  • (v. t.) To fasten or attach.
  • (v. t.) Especially, to attach or secure in a slight or hasty manner, as by stitching or nailing; as, to tack together the sheets of a book; to tack one piece of cloth to another; to tack on a board or shingle; to tack one piece of metal to another by drops of solder.
  • (v. t.) In parliamentary usage, to add (a supplement) to a bill; to append; -- often with on or to.
  • (v. t.) To change the direction of (a vessel) when sailing closehauled, by putting the helm alee and shifting the tacks and sails so that she will proceed to windward nearly at right angles to her former course.
  • (v. i.) To change the direction of a vessel by shifting the position of the helm and sails; also (as said of a vessel), to have her direction changed through the shifting of the helm and sails. See Tack, v. t., 4.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Tiny, tiny... rodents – some soft and grey, some brown with black stripes, in paintings, posters, wallcharts, thumb-tacked magazine clippings and poorly executed crayon drawings, hurling themselves fatally in their thousands over the cliff of their island home; or crudely taxidermied and mounted, eyes glazed and little paws frozen stiff – on every available surface.
  • (2) But fresh evidence that waiting times are creeping up, despite David Cameron's pledge to keep them low, has forced Lansley to change tack and impose an extra treatment directive on the NHS.
  • (3) The Department for Culture, Media and Sport also left the door open for a change of tack over the use of the licence fee, saying that if "better options than the government's preferred one emerge in the meantime", it will "consider them".
  • (4) Two eyes with complex detachments with fixed rolled retinas could not have been repaired without the help of retinal tacks.
  • (5) The government needs to change tack and admit that its obsession with structural changes to schools has failed.” Ofsted chief criticises independent schools' lack of help for state schools Read more Wilshaw’s letter was based on the results of inspections of the management and operations of seven academy chains running 220 schools across the country: AET, E-Act, Wakefield City Academies, Oasis, CfBT, The Education Fellowship and the most recent, School Partnership Trust Academies (SPTA).
  • (6) "It was done to silence her," Akbulatov says, speaking in Memorial's office, a colour photo of Estemirova tacked to the wall.
  • (7) On some issues - particularly Europe - Lib Dems in the south have to tack more to the right.
  • (8) Syrian security forces were reported to have launched another wave of violence against pro-democracy protesters on Tuesday as President Bashar al-Assad rejected a Turkish appeal to change tack or meet the fate of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi.
  • (9) The prospect of Front National gains has left Sarkozy's ruling UMP party, a broad coalition of centre right and rightwing factions, scrapping over what tack to take to hang on to their seats.
  • (10) In the face of popular passions about immigration and the European Union, the Labour party has bobbed and tacked without taking a clear line.
  • (11) Along with some of his fellow Rangers, he walked me through the program – a strong, impressive young man, with an easy manner, sharp as a tack.
  • (12) An improved retinal tack and applicator can be used to fix the retina to the wall of the eye mechanically.
  • (13) In monkey eyes, histological examination disclosed a considerable fibrovascular proliferation around the retinal tack canal, including an inflammatory response, formation of collagenous tissue and glial proliferation.
  • (14) The correlation between the results of all these researches leaves little doubt on the existence of eye-tacking dysfunctions in schizophrenics.
  • (15) A previous owner tacked on additional rooms seemingly at random, giving the impression of a mad, elongated cottage with an internal maze.
  • (16) It's a change of tack for the Playboy brand after some troubled decades, and many believe this return to affluent values and women dressed as rabbits is exactly the right move.
  • (17) When practiced by several surgeons, the flap tacking procedure 1) reduces postmastectomy seromas and 2) reduces the amount of postoperative patient office visits and care.
  • (18) Those changes have not altered the fundamental structure of the system, but instead have been tacked onto it, and exemplify what may be termed additive reform.
  • (19) 4.09am GMT Saints 23-24 Eagles, 4:44, 4th quarter The Saints certainly have time here to respond, and in fact they might need so slow things down themselves after moving immediately up to the 48-yard line on a nice Darren Sproles kick return that had an additional 15 yards tacked on the end for a horsecollar tackle.
  • (20) Tritiated thymidine autoradiography was used to evaluate the proliferation of ocular tissues in response to tack insertion.