What's the difference between rack and torment?

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.

Torment


Definition:

  • (n.) An engine for casting stones.
  • (n.) Extreme pain; anguish; torture; the utmost degree of misery, either of body or mind.
  • (n.) That which gives pain, vexation, or misery.
  • (v. t.) To put to extreme pain or anguish; to inflict excruciating misery upon, either of body or mind; to torture.
  • (v. t.) To pain; to distress; to afflict.
  • (v. t.) To tease; to vex; to harass; as, to be tormented with importunities, or with petty annoyances.
  • (v. t.) To put into great agitation.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Her story is an incredible tale of triumph over tragedy: a tormented childhood during China's Cultural Revolution, detention and forced exile after exposing female infanticide – then glittering success as the head of a major US technology firm.
  • (2) "It is difficult to imagine the torment experienced by the vulnerable victims of crimes such as these.
  • (3) While his citizens were being beaten and tormented in illegal detention, spokesmen for the then prime minister, Tony Blair, declared: "The Italian police had a difficult job to do.
  • (4) Yet the removal of two in-form goalscorers who were tormenting West Ham – first Aaron Lennon and then Lukaku – afforded the visitors the initiative.
  • (5) Through small and large acts of deprivation and destruction we follow the process: the removal of hope, of dignity, of luxury, of necessity, of self; the reduction of a man to a hoarder of grey slabs of bread and the scrapings of a soup bowl (wonderfully told all this, with a novelist's gift for detail and sometimes very nearly comic surprise), to the confinement of a narrow bed – in which there is "not even any room to be afraid" – with a stranger who doesn't speak your language, to the cruel illogicality of hating a fellow victim of oppression more than you hate the oppressor himself – one torment following another, and even the bleak comfort of thinking you might have touched rock bottom denied you as, when the most immediate cause of a particular stress comes to an end, "you are grievously amazed to see that another one lies behind; and in reality a whole series of others".
  • (6) Corner to USA though... 1.33am BST 20 mins More tempo in the American play now, but Belgium intercept again, and Mirallas torments them down the Belgian right flank before hitting a low cross in that's hoofed safely clear.
  • (7) It cannot be right that anyone who has found the courage to escape their abusive or violent partner should be subjected to the stress and torment of being confronted and interrogated by them in any court.” Research by charity Women’s Aid suggests a quarter of women in family court proceedings have been cross-examined by an abusive former partner.
  • (8) Shin Dong-hyuk said he was tormented to see his father alive and speaking in the video released by Pyongyang in October.
  • (9) In a torment of frustration, Mohammed stood outside the governor's and threw a can of petrol over himself.
  • (10) More than a quarter of hospital beds are occupied by people with dementia (no surprise to anyone who has been in hospital recently, where wards are full of men and women in great anxiety and torment) and they tend to stay for longer-than-average periods of time.
  • (11) Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island whose bipartisan bill will ensure a three-month extension of the federal benefits program, told the Guardian the measure would stimulate the economy and alleviate what he called the “mental torment” suffered by those long-term unemployed who now feel abandoned.
  • (12) It was only his inflexible determination, the quality that had made him a great general, that mastered the torments of ill-health – sleepless nights, fear of dying – to articulate his account for a devoted American audience.
  • (13) The man who devised these torments has a passing resemblance to El Greco's emaciated saints.
  • (14) Arsenal had no riposte to the blue and white striped waves that tormented them all evening.
  • (15) Father Michael, so brilliantly played by Sean Bean , was tormented by one such moment: his decision not to answer the phone to Helen Oyenusi (Muna Otaru) when she called to ask that he calm down her son.
  • (16) Suárez played as through affronted by the suggestion he might have fitness issues, tormenting England’s defence on a night that finished as a personal ordeal for Steven Gerrard.
  • (17) So often did John torment his elder brother – because, grouchy alcoholic prick that he was, he hated to acknowledge a debt – one has to wonder if he cast Francis in a minor part in Young Mr Lincoln simply to let him witness, day after day, his own signature role being forever obliterated by Henry Fonda's entrancing new reading.
  • (18) Shawcross, however, maintains there was no bad intent and said for that reason he has not been tormenting himself about the moment he collided with Ramsey's right leg and left the teenager writhing in agony.
  • (19) Since his withdrawal from the music scene, Shields has earned a reputation as the latter-day Brian Wilson, a tormented genius unable to produce a successor to Loveless, the Pet Sounds of UK avant-rock.
  • (20) Adding to the torment for Rodgers was a 120-minute performance before hosting Manchester City in the Premier League on Sunday at noon.