WRECKING • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Wrecking

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/rˈɛkɪŋ/ Listen

noun

Wrecking n. A. & n. from Wreck, v.

Wrecking car (Railway), a car fitted up with apparatus and implements for removing the wreck occasioned by an accident, as by a collision.

Wrecking pump, a pump especially adapted for pumping water from the hull of a wrecked vessel.

verb

Wreck v. t. (past & past part. wrecked; pres. part. wrecking)

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."

To bring wreck or ruin upon by any kind of violence; to destroy, as a railroad train.

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.

To suffer wreck or ruin.

To work upon a wreck, as in saving property or lives, or in plundering.

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Etymology of 'Wrecking'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Wrecking" Quotes from Famous Books

... journals look like sporting supplements. But at last the work had told upon him. Whether it was the effort of digging into the literature of the past every week, or the strain of reading B. Henderson Asher's "Moments of Mirth" is uncertain. At any rate, his labors had ended in wrecking his health to such an extent that the doctor had ordered him three months' complete rest, in the woods or mountains, whichever he preferred; and, being a farseeing man, who went to the root of things, had absolutely declined ...

— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse

... engrossed that they did not observe, backing swiftly down upon them, the wrecking train it was their purpose to block. While still in motion, the cars disgorged Captain Kelly and his company, who had been guarding the Pan Handle tracks all day, but had not yet, it seemed, earned ...

— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth

... represent, and, with St. Augustin, most of them do not recognize such feelings in the "pagan savage." Moreover, while early Christianity, like all other religions, was an appeal to the broadly human feelings of mutual aid and sympathy, the Christian Church has aided the State in wrecking all standing institutions of mutual aid and support which were anterior to it, or developed outside of it; and, instead of the mutual aid which every savage considers as due to his kinsman, it has preached charity ...

— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin

... finished, the road was seared, and blown, and pitted with unequal pressure layers, spirals, vortices, and readjustments for at least an hour. I pitched badly twice in an upward rush—solely due to these diabolical throw-downs—that came near to wrecking my propeller. Equatorial work at low levels is trying enough in all conscience without the added terrors of ...

— Actions and Reactions • Rudyard Kipling

... What folly to interfere with a marvellous instinct which now preserves this balance intact, in favour of an untried artificial system which would probably wreck it as helplessly as the modern system of higher education for women is wrecking the maternal powers of the best class in our ...

— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen

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