What's the difference between wrack and wreak?

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.

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.