What's the difference between torment and wrack?

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.

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.