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Wreck   /rɛk/   Listen
noun
Wreck  n.  (Written also wrack)  
1.
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. "Hard and obstinate As is a rock amidst the raging floods, 'Gainst which a ship, of succor desolate, Doth suffer wreck, both of herself and goods."
2.
Destruction or injury of anything, especially by violence; ruin; as, the wreck of a railroad train. "The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds." "Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst the wreck of its political life."
3.
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.
4.
The remain of anything ruined or fatally injured. "To the fair haven of my native home, The wreck of what I was, fatigued I come."
5.
(Law) Goods, etc., which, after a shipwreck, are cast upon the land by the sea.


verb
Wreck  v. t., n.  See 2d & 3d Wreak.


Wreck  v. t.  (past & past part. wrecked; pres. part. wrecking)  
1.
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. "Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked."
2.
To bring wreck or ruin upon by any kind of violence; to destroy, as a railroad train.
3.
To involve in a wreck; hence, to cause to suffer ruin; to balk of success, and bring disaster on. "Weak and envied, if they should conspire, They wreck themselves."


Wreck  v. i.  
1.
To suffer wreck or ruin.
2.
To work upon a wreck, as in saving property or lives, or in plundering.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Wreck" Quotes from Famous Books



... marriage should not be delayed. He was a free man and he meant to exercise and enjoy his freedom. He had taken soundings where he had gone down on that first venture and touched nowhere any trace of the wreck; the waters of oblivion rippled listlessly ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... our ministry marked for us from the beginning; This is our gift, and our portion apart, and our godhead, Ours, ours only for ever, Darkness, robes of darkness, a robe of terror for ever! Ruin is ours, ruin and wreck; When to the home Murder hath come, Making to cease Innocent peace; Then at his beck Follow we in, Follow the sin; And ah! we hold to the end when we begin!" [Footnote: Aeschyl. Eum. 297.—Translated by Dr. Verrall ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... a motor race at Palm Beach. There was a big smash-up and a French car was wrecked. We had entered our "Model K"—the high-powered six. I thought the foreign cars had smaller and better parts than we knew anything about. After the wreck I picked up a little valve strip stem. It was very light and very strong. I asked what it was made of. Nobody knew. I gave the stem to ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... the sunny land of Provence, and was there again with one dearly loved, who was only spared to me a few short months. She died in giving thee birth, my Hubert; had she lived, I had not become the wreck I am. ...
— The House of Walderne - A Tale of the Cloister and the Forest in the Days of the Barons' Wars • A. D. Crake
... since he had left the army, roared out several songs concerning the feminine element at the sea-side, or voicing an inquiry as to a gentleman's companion on the previous night. Then, with an entire lack of appropriateness, another got up and recited "The Wreck of the Titanic" in a most touching and dramatic manner. Followed a song with ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"


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