What's the difference between rack and wrack?

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.

Wrack


Definition:

  • (n.) A thin, flying cloud; a rack.
  • (v. t.) To rack; to torment.
  • (n.) Wreck; ruin; destruction.
  • (n.) Any marine vegetation cast up on the shore, especially plants of the genera Fucus, Laminaria, and Zostera, which are most abundant on northern shores.
  • (n.) Coarse seaweed of any kind.
  • (v. t.) To wreck.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) And it is wracked with cultural conflict between about 12,000 long-time Williston residents and at least 21,000 newcomers who’ve arrived over the past five-odd years.
  • (2) Cyclones will wrack the coast more frequently, and with more intensity.
  • (3) All three states have been wracked with conflict since December 2013, when a power struggle broke out between Salva Kiir, the South Sudanese president, and his former vice-president Riek Machar.
  • (4) Matt Wrack, the general secretary, said: "The government must realise that firefighters cannot accept proposals that would have such devastating consequences for their futures, their families' futures, and the future of the fire and rescue service itself.
  • (5) It represented the first confirmation of US military operations within insurgency-wracked Syria, where Isis gestated into the jihadist organisation that has redrawn the borders of the Middle East.
  • (6) Matt Wrack , the FBU general secretary, said: "The FBU has wanted to settle our dispute for a long time, but the government at Westminster is simply not listening.
  • (7) Yemen was already the poorest country in the Middle East, wracked by conflict and struggling in a transition to a more secure future.
  • (8) The Global Times wrote an editorial on Friday in which it noted that he is the first western official in recent years to have visited the violence-wracked region of Xinjiang and stressed its business potential instead of “finding fault over the human rights issue”.
  • (9) But with their host country wracked by civil war for nearly a year, they’ve had to make other plans.
  • (10) The mechanism of antimutagenicity of water extracts of grass-wrack pondweed (Potamogeton oxyphylus Miquel), curled pondweed (Potamogeton crispus L.) and smartweed (Polygonum hydropiper L.) towards benzo[a]pyrene mutagenicity in Salmonella typhimurium was investigated.
  • (11) In a region already wracked by water scarcity and conflict, more drying could ratchet up tension even further.
  • (12) The transcendence they are remembering is the aim of the art of dancing: the aim of a dancer's entire wracked body to become one with the music.
  • (13) 7.49pm BST Another Man In Suit accuses the Federal Reserve of being wracked with division.
  • (14) Committee members whose future in Momentum is in doubt include Jill Mountford, of the Trotskyist group Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, and the former Militant activist Nick Wrack, both of whom were expelled from the Labour party last year.
  • (15) The western powers played the decisive role in the overthrow of the Libyan regime – acting in the name of protecting civilians, who then died in their thousands in a Nato-escalated civil war, while conflict-wracked Syria was threatened with intervention and Iran with all-out attack.
  • (16) But as well as the absence of several key leaders, including Barack Obama , Angela Merkel and David Cameron , the conference organisers are struggling to adjust to the blurring of battles lines as Europe is wracked by crisis, and emerging economies of China, Brazil, India and Russia pull ahead of the rest of the developing world.
  • (17) In an email trail detailing exchanges between Momentum’s steering committee members, Chessum, an ally of Mountford and Wrack, grew increasingly exasperated as it became clear that the plans, which were drawn up secretly by Lansman, would be approved.
  • (18) The healthcare bill will funnel $100bn to states over a decade to stabilize what are sure to be markets wracked by chaos, assuming this legislation survives intact to Trump’s desk.
  • (19) As well as sending his spin on grunge, punk and rockabilly down the Saint Laurent catwalk, Slimane shoots all the label’s advertising campaigns and unveiled Saint Laurent’s new beginning under his direction with images of Christopher Owens , a classic rock lost boy with a back catalogue of wracked, emotional songs and an action-packed past.
  • (20) The former Himalayan kingdom has been wracked by protests in the wake of the killing of a popular young militant separatist by security forces on 8 July.