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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 (gcide)

Wrack \Wrack\, n.
A thin, flying cloud; a rack.
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Wrack \Wrack\, v. t.
To rack; to torment. [R.]
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Wrack \Wrack\, n. [OE. wrak wreck. See {Wreck}.]
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1. Wreck; ruin; destruction. [Obs.] --Chaucer. "A world
devote to universal wrack." --Milton.
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2. Any marine vegetation cast up on the shore, especially
plants of the genera {Fucus}, {Laminaria}, and {Zostera},
which are most abundant on northern shores.
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3. (Bot.) Coarse seaweed of any kind.
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{Wrack grass}, or {Grass wrack} (Bot.), eelgrass.
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Wrack \Wrack\, v. t.
To wreck. [Obs.] --Dryden.
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Wreck \Wreck\, n. [OE. wrak, AS. wr[ae]c exile, persecution,
misery, from wrecan to drive out, punish; akin to D. wrak,
adj., damaged, brittle, n., a wreck, wraken to reject, throw
off, Icel. rek a thing drifted ashore, Sw. vrak refuse, a
wreck, Dan. vrag. See {Wreak}, v. t., and cf. {Wrack} a
marine plant.] [Written also {wrack}.]
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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.
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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.
--Spenser.
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2. Destruction or injury of anything, especially by violence;
ruin; as, the wreck of a railroad train.
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The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.
--Addison.
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Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst
the wreck of its political life. --J. R. Green.
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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.
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4. The remain of anything ruined or fatally injured.
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To the fair haven of my native home,
The wreck of what I was, fatigued I come. --Cowper.
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5. (Law) Goods, etc., which, after a shipwreck, are cast upon
the land by the sea. --Bouvier.
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