What's the difference between wrack and wreck?

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.

Wreck


Definition:

  • (v. t. & n.) See 2d & 3d Wreak.
  • (v. t.) The destruction or injury of a vessel by being cast on shore, or on rocks, or by being disabled or sunk by the force of winds or waves; shipwreck.
  • (v. t.) Destruction or injury of anything, especially by violence; ruin; as, the wreck of a railroad train.
  • (v. t.) The ruins of a ship stranded; a ship dashed against rocks or land, and broken, or otherwise rendered useless, by violence and fracture; as, they burned the wreck.
  • (v. t.) The remain of anything ruined or fatally injured.
  • (v. t.) Goods, etc., which, after a shipwreck, are cast upon the land by the sea.
  • (v. t.) To destroy, disable, or seriously damage, as a vessel, by driving it against the shore or on rocks, by causing it to become unseaworthy, to founder, or the like; to shipwreck.
  • (v. t.) To bring wreck or ruin upon by any kind of violence; to destroy, as a railroad train.
  • (v. t.) To involve in a wreck; hence, to cause to suffer ruin; to balk of success, and bring disaster on.
  • (v. i.) To suffer wreck or ruin.
  • (v. i.) To work upon a wreck, as in saving property or lives, or in plundering.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The Italian coastguard ship Bruno Gregoracci docked in Malta at about 8am and dropped off two dozen bodies recovered from this weekend’s wreck, including children, according to Save the Children.
  • (2) That the BBC has probably not been as vulnerable since the 1980s is also true – not least because the enemies of impartiality are more powerful, and the BBC's competitors (maimed after a year's exposure of their own behaviour in the Leveson inquiry ) are keen to wreck it.
  • (3) Liverpool's fixation with the wrecking ball is not party-political – it was passed from a Labour council to the Lib Dems and now back to Labour – nor is it unique to Toxteth.
  • (4) A number of MPs and senior party figures supported a wrecking amendment that would have robbed the motion of its primary purpose, opponents said.
  • (5) The optimism is based on the ability of people, in the end, to see sense.” Shorten said the budget included large elements that the Labor party under his leadership could never support in the parliament, including pricing Australian children out of university and “wrecking Medicare”.
  • (6) Water supplies are restricted to the wealthy few, and landmark buildings such as the presidential palace remain wrecked nine years after the end of the war.
  • (7) Others wrecked the villa interior, poured fuel on the floor and set it alight.
  • (8) An investigation is under way to find out what caused the explosion that wrecked the Warrior vehicle as it patrolled the border of Helmand and Kandahar in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday.
  • (9) Another wonderful thing to do is to take a ferry from Tobermory to Fathom Five national marine park and swim to one of the many underwater wrecks.
  • (10) The government is also correct to say the current system is too complex; 1,300 pages of planning law are being used (understandably) by anyone who thinks a development project would wreck their view and damage the value of their house.
  • (11) We can do that but we can wreck the inquiry in the process,” the Conservative MP told Today.
  • (12) The life of this once serene and resilient woman has been wrecked.
  • (13) The main building is wrecked, the control tower holed and on the scorched tarmac are the remains of 21 planes – much of Libya's small commercial fleet.
  • (14) The mine will destroy the forests on which the Dongria Kondh depend and wreck the lives of thousands of other Kondh tribal people living in the area."
  • (15) This is a gross injustice and it has wrecked my life.
  • (16) There is nowhere to go except further into an area of the city 750 metres wide by 500 metres deep that runs along the coast from the television station – with its pair of wrecked and punctured dishes – to the edge of District Two, overlooked by the pavilion and its sagging roof.
  • (17) A healthy Neftali Feliz takes over the closer duties from Joe Nathan in Ron Washington’s pitching staff, one that was wrecked by injuries in 2013, something that has to change this time out.
  • (18) The bad press and everything that’s happened – it’s wrecked my life to a certain extent.
  • (19) Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball (Chatroulette Version) Fabulous balls-up 2.
  • (20) That spirit of co-operation represents a drastic change from the calamitous Copenhagen climate summit in 2009, when diplomatic snubs and general distrust between the two countries wrecked any prospect for a deal.