What's the difference between wreak and wreck?

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.

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.