RACK

rack, single-foot

(noun) a rapid gait of a horse in which each foot strikes the ground separately

rack

(noun) a form of torture in which pain is inflicted by stretching the body

rack, stand

(noun) a support for displaying various articles; “the newspapers were arranged on a rack”

rack

(noun) framework for holding objects

rack, wheel

(noun) an instrument of torture that stretches or disjoints or mutilates victims

wrack, rack

(noun) the destruction or collapse of something; “wrack and ruin”

rack

(noun) rib section of a forequarter of veal or pork or especially lamb or mutton

rack

(verb) torture on the rack

rack

(verb) seize together, as of parallel ropes of a tackle in order to prevent running through the block

rack

(verb) work on a rack; “rack leather”

rack

(verb) stretch to the limits; “rack one’s brains”

torment, torture, excruciate, rack

(verb) torment emotionally or mentally

rack

(verb) draw off from the lees; “rack wine”

rack

(verb) fly in high wind

scud, rack

(verb) run before a gale

rack, single-foot

(verb) go at a rack; “the horses single-footed”

extort, squeeze, rack, gouge, wring

(verb) obtain by coercion or intimidation; “They extorted money from the executive by threatening to reveal his past to the company boss”; “They squeezed money from the owner of the business by threatening him”

rack

(verb) put on a rack and pinion; “rack a camera”

Source: WordNet® 3.1

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Noun

RACK (uncountable)

(BDSM) Initialism of Risk-aware consensual kink.

Anagrams

• cark

Etymology 1

Noun

rack (plural racks)

A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other

Any of various kinds of frame for holding luggage or other objects on a vehicle or vessel.

Synonym: luggage rack

(historical) A device, incorporating a ratchet, used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.

(nautical) A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes.

Synonym: rack block

(nautical, slang) A bunk.

(nautical, by extension, slang, uncountable) Sleep.

A distaff.

(mechanical engineering) A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with those of a gearwheel, pinion, or worm, which is to drive or be driven by it.

(mechanical engineering) A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with a pawl as a ratchet allowing movement in one direction only, used for example in a handbrake or crossbow.

A cranequin, a mechanism including a rack, pinion and pawl, providing both mechanical advantage and a ratchet, used to bend and cock a crossbow.

A set of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).

A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs.

(billiards, snooker) A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.

(slang, vulgar) A woman's breasts.

Synonym: Thesaurus:breasts

(climbing, caving) A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded.

(climbing, slang) A climber's set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, carabiners, nuts, Friends, etc.

A grate on which bacon is laid.

(obsolete) That which is extorted; exaction.

(algebra) A set with a distributive binary operation whose result is unique.

(British, slang) A thousand pounds (£1,000), especially such proceeds of crime

Verb

rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)

To place in or hang on a rack.

To torture (someone) on the rack.

To cause (someone) to suffer pain.

(figurative) To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.

(billiards, snooker, pool) To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.

Synonym: rack up

(slang) To strike a male in the testicles.

(firearms) To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.

(firearms) To move the slide bar on a shotgun in order to chamber the next round.

(mining) To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.

(nautical) To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.

(structural engineering) Tending to shear a structure (that is, force it to move in different directions at different points).

Synonym: shear

Usage notes

In senses “torture” and “suffer pain”, frequently confused with wrack (“destroy”) (more rarely, wrack (“wreckage”)), both as stand-alone verb and in compounds. In most uses, rack is correct, and wrack is incorrect. Etymologically, nerve-racking (“stressful”), pain-racked, and rack one's brain, rack one's brains (“think hard”) are correct, while rack and ruin and storm-racked are incorrect, variants of wrack and ruin (“complete destruction”) and storm-wracked (“wrecked by a storm”).

Usage guidance differs: either prefer the etymologically correct term, prefer rack to (archaic) wrack, or use either. The etymologically correct forms are preferred by some style guides, but the unetymological forms are well-established and in wide use, and other style guides simply consider them variant spellings. Other style guides categorically ban wrack as archaic, suggesting modern synonyms like wreck, ruin, or destroy. In some cases style guides are confused by the etymology, or feature unhistorical forms such as nerve-wracking.

This confusion dates to Early Modern English in the 16th century (as in rack and ruin), and is presumably due to the influence of ⟨wr⟩ in words such as wreak, wreck, wrench, etc, which connote discomfort and torment. Formally termed the graphaesthesia of the graphaestheme ⟨wr⟩, since identical sound /r/ to ⟨r⟩; compare with phonaesthesia. Compare rapt/wrapt, and also ⟨gh⟩ as in ghost, ghastly, ghoul.

Etymology 2

Verb

rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)

To stretch a person's joints.

Etymology 3

Verb

rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)

To drive; move; go forward rapidly; stir

To fly, as vapour or broken clouds

Noun

rack (uncountable)

Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapour in the sky.

Etymology 4

Verb

rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)

(brewing) To clarify, and thereby deter further fermentation of, beer, wine or cider by draining or siphoning it from the dregs.

Etymology 5

Verb

rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)

(of a horse) To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace.

Noun

rack (plural racks)

A fast amble.

Etymology 6

Noun

rack (plural racks)

(obsolete) A wreck; destruction.

Etymology 7

Noun

rack (plural racks)

(obsolete) A young rabbit, or its skin.

Etymology 8

Noun

rack

Alternative form of arak

Anagrams

• cark

Source: Wiktionary

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Rack, n.

Definition: Same as Arrack.

Rack, n. Etym: [AS. hracca neck, hinder part of the head; cf. AS. hraca throat, G. rachen throat, E. retch.]

Definition: The neck and spine of a fore quarter of veal or mutton.

Rack, n. Etym: [See Wreck.]

Definition: A wreck; destruction. [Obs., except in a few phrases.] Rack and ruin, destruction; utter ruin. [Colloq.] -- To go to rack, to perish; to be destroyed. [Colloq.] "All goes to rack." Pepys.

Rack, n. Etym: [Prob. fr. Icel. rek drift, motion, and akin to reka to drive, and E. wrack, wreck. .]

Definition: Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapor in the sky. Shak. The winds in the upper region, which move the clouds above, which we call the rack, . . . pass without noise. Bacon. And the night rack came rolling up. C. Kingsley.

Rack, v. i.

Definition: To fly, as vapor or broken clouds.

Rack, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Racked; p. pr. & vb. n. Racking.] Etym: [See Rack that which stretches, or Rock, v.]

Definition: To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace; -- said of a horse. Fuller.

Rack, n.

Definition: A fast amble.

Rack, v. t. Etym: [Cf. OF. vin raqué squeezed from the dregs of the grapes.]

Definition: To draw off from the lees or sediment, as wine. It is in common practice to draw wine or beer from the lees (which we call racking), whereby it will clarify much the sooner. Bacon. Rack vintage, wine cleansed and drawn from the lees. Cowell.

Rack, n. Etym: [Probably fr. D.rek, rekbank, a rack, rekken to stretch; akin to G. reck, reckbank, a rack, recken to stretch, Dan. række, Sw. räcka, Icel. rekja to spread out, Goth. refrakjan to stretch out; cf. L. porrigere, Gr. Right, a., Ratch.]

1. An instrument or frame used for stretching, extending, retaining, or displaying, something. Specifically: (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. During the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity. Macaulay.

(b) An instrument for bending a bow. (c) A grate on which bacon is laid. (d) A frame or device of various construction for holding, and preventing the waste of, hay, grain, etc., supplied to beasts. (e) A frame on which articles are deposited for keeping or arranged for display; as, a clothes rack; a bottle rack, etc. (f) (Naut.) 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. (g) (Mining) A frame or table on which ores are separated or washed. (h) A frame fitted to a wagon for carrying hay, straw, or grain on the stalk, or other bulky loads. (i) A distaff.

2. (Mech.)

Definition: 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.

3. That which is extorted; exaction. [Obs.] Sir E. Sandys. Mangle rack. (Mach.) See under Mangle. n.

– Rack block. (Naut.) See def. 1 (f), above.

– Rack lashing, a lashing or binding where the rope is tightened, and held tight by the use of a small stick of wood twisted around.

– Rack rail (Railroads), a toothed rack, laid as a rail, to afford a hold for teeth on the driving wheel of locomotive for climbing steep gradients, as in ascending a mountain.

– Rack saw, a saw having wide teeth.

– Rack stick, the stick used in a rack lashing.

– To be on the rack, to suffer torture, physical or mental.

– To live at rack and manger, to live on the best at another's expense. [Colloq.] -- To put to the rack, to subject to torture; to torment. A fit of the stone puts a kingto the rack, and makes him as miserable as it does the meanest subject. Sir W. Temple.

Rack, v. t.

1. 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. He was racked and miserably tormented. Pope.

2. To torment; to torture; to affect with extreme pain or anguish. Vaunting aloud but racked with deep despair. Milton.

3. To stretch or strain, in a figurative sense; hence, to harass, or oppress by extortion. The landlords there shamefully rack their tenants. Spenser. They [landlords] rack a Scripture simile beyond the true intent thereof. Fuller. Try what my credit can in Venice do; That shall be racked even to the uttermost. Shak.

4. (Mining)

Definition: To wash on a rack, as metals or ore.

5. (Naut.)

Definition: To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc. To rack one's brains or wits, to exert them to the utmost for the purpose of accomplishing something.

Syn.

– To torture; torment; rend; tear.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition

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