Wiktionary

rack

See also: Rack, RACK, and räck

English

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A rack for weights in a gym
 
A dish rack holding some plates
 
A torture rack (sense 3)
 
A rack (sense 13) of pool balls
 
A rack (sense 12) of lamb in a butcher's shop
 
A climber's rack (sense 17)

Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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From Middle English rakke, rekke, from Middle Dutch rac, recke, rec (Dutch rek), see rekken.

Noun

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rack (plural racks)

  1. A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other
  2. Any of various kinds of frame for holding luggage or other objects on a vehicle or vessel.
    Synonym: luggage rack
  4. (historical) A device, incorporating a ratchet, used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.
  5. (nautical) A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes.
    Synonym: rack block
  6. (nautical, slang) A bunk.
    • 2008, Byron L. Smith, Prescription Music, →ISBN, page 33:
      Chief Stevens approached my rack and repeatedly ordered me to vacate my rack and report to the working party.
    • 2010, Herb Brewer, Chronicles of a Marine Rifleman: Vietnam, 1965-1966, →ISBN, page 171:
      By the time I had unpacked my sea bag, made my rack, and finished a good long hot shower, it was late in the evening.
    • 2016, Cpl. Osborn R. E, Like Killing Rats, →ISBN:
      I took off my helmet, sat it gently down at the head of my rack on the wooden deck, plopped my butt down on my rack again, and began taking off my stateside assbusting boots.
  7. (nautical, by extension, slang, uncountable) Sleep.
  8. A distaff.
  9. (mechanical engineering, rail transport) 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.
    • 1950 November, H. P. White, “The Furka-Oberalp Railway”, in Railway Magazine, page 767:
      Just beyond that station the first step is encountered and the rack resorted to, taking the line on a gradient of 1 in 9 over a steeply inclined bridge and through a spiral tunnel.
    • 1960 December, 'Voyageur', “The Mountain Railways of the Bernese Oberland”, in Trains Illustrated, page 750:
      The ladder-type Riggenbach rack is the one in use on both systems.
  10. (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.
  11. A cranequin, a mechanism including a rack, pinion and pawl, providing both mechanical advantage and a ratchet, used to bend and cock a crossbow.
  12. A set of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).
  14. A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs.
    I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher's yesterday.
  16. (billiards, snooker) A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.
  17. (gambling) A plastic tray used for holding and moving chips.
  19. (slang, vulgar) A woman's breasts.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:breasts
  20. (climbing, caving) A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded.
    rappel rack
    abseil rack
  22. (climbing, slang) A climber's set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, carabiners, nuts, Friends, etc.
    I used almost a full rack on the second pitch.
  23. A grate on which bacon is laid.
  24. (algebra) A set with a distributive binary operation whose result is unique.
  25. (slang) A thousand dollars, especially if the proceeds are from a crime.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 2

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From Old English reċċan (“to stretch out, extend”).

Verb

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

  1. To place in or hang on a rack.
  2. To torture (someone) on the rack.
  3. To cause (someone) to suffer pain.
    Synonyms: torment, torture; see also Thesaurus:hurt
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
      Vaunting aloud but racked with deep despair.
  4. (figurative) To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.
    • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:
      Try what my credit can in Venice do; / That shall be racked even to the uttermost.
    • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC:
      The landlords there most shamefully rack their tenants.
    • 1645, Thomas Fuller, “Scripture Observations”, in Good Thoughts in Bad Times, […], Exeter, Devon: […] Thomas Hunt, →OCLC, section I, page 69:
      Grant that I may never rack a Scripture Similie, beyond the true intent thereof.
  5. (billiards, snooker, pool) To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.
    Synonym: rack up
  6. (slang, transitive) To strike in the testicles.
    • 1999 November 2, Squad Leader, “CUPS Required for Gym Class?”, in alt.support.jock-strap‎[1] (Usenet):
      Bike7125 raises a great point suggesting that cups could have been recommended "optional" equipment in school PE. I never got racked by a baseball or softball, but we did have a gym teacher, who insisted on a weekly session of a "cruelty sport" called bombardment. The idea was to throw basketballs at a line of guys, and try to hit them. (Guess where most gym bullys aimed!)
  7. (firearms) To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.
  8. (firearms) To move the slide bar on a shotgun in order to chamber the next round.
  9. (mining) To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.
  10. (nautical) To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.
  12. (structural engineering) To tend to shear a structure (that is, force it to bend, lean, or move in different directions at different points).
    Synonym: shear
    Post-and-lintel construction racks easily.
    • 1977, Roger L. Tuomi, David S. Gromala, “Racking Strength of Walls”, in USDA Forest Service Research Paper‎[2], number FPL 301:
      The racking strength of a wall system is defined in terms of its ability to resist horizon­tal inplane shear forces. The shear, or racking, forces which act on wail systems arise primarily from wind.
Usage notes
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In senses “torture” and “suffer pain”, frequently confused with wrack (“destroy”) (more rarely, wrack (“wreckage”)), both as stand-alone verb and in compounds.[1] In most uses, rack is correct, and wrack is incorrect.[2] 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,[3] but the unetymological forms are well-established and in wide use, and other style guides simply consider them variant spellings.[4] Other style guides categorically ban wrack as archaic, suggesting modern synonyms like wreck, ruin, or destroy.[5] In some cases style guides are confused by the etymology, or feature unhistorical forms such as nerve-wracking.[6]

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.[7] Formally termed the graphaesthesia of the graphaestheme ⟨wr⟩, since identical sound /r/ to ⟨r⟩; compare with phonaesthesia.[8] Compare rapt/wrapt, and also ⟨gh⟩ as in ghost and ghastly.

Conjugation
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Conjugation of rack
infinitive (to) rack
present tense past tense
1st-person singular rack racked
2nd-person singular rack, rackest† racked, rackedst†
3rd-person singular racks, racketh† racked
plural rack
subjunctive rack racked
imperative rack —
participles racking racked

†Archaic or obsolete.

Derived terms
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Translations
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Etymology 3

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From Middle English reken, from Old Norse reka (“to be drifted, tost”)[9]

The noun is from Middle English rak, rakke, from Middle English rek (“drift; thing tossed ashore; jetsam”), from the verb.

Verb

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

  1. To drive; move; go forward rapidly; stir.
  2. To fly, as vapour or broken clouds.
Translations
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Noun

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rack (uncountable)

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

Etymology 4

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From Middle English rakken.

Verb

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

  1. (brewing) To clarify, and thereby deter further fermentation of, beer, wine or cider by draining or siphoning it from the dregs.
    • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC:
      It is in common practice to draw wine or beer from the lees (which we call racking), whereby it will clarify much the sooner.
    • 1987, Keith Dunstan, The Amber Nectar, Ringwood: Vicking O'Neil, page 108:
      The Darwin administrator, J.C. Archer, with great ceremony, turned on the flow to rack the precious golden stuff into casks.
Translations
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Etymology 5

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See rack (“that which stretches”), or rock (verb).

Verb

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

  1. (of a horse) To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace.
    • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=I to XI):
      The other two (only racking, no thorough-paced protestants) watched their opportunity to run away

Noun

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rack (plural racks)

  1. A fast amble.

Etymology 6

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See wreck.

Noun

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rack (plural racks)

  1. (obsolete) A wreck; destruction.
Derived terms
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Etymology 7

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Uncertain. Perhaps a contraction of rabbock, an alteration ( +‎ -ock) of rabbit.

Noun

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rack (plural racks)

  1. (obsolete) A young rabbit, or its skin.
    • 1869 February 13, “Rabbit Skin”, in All the Year Round, page 247:
      Now, sir, you would say a skin is a skin, we say it is a ' whole,' or a 'half,' or a 'quarter,' or a 'rack,' or a 'sucker. Suckers are skins of infant rabbits, and of little value. Eight racks are equal to one whole.
    • 1879, Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, page 380:
      The skin of a sucker is white, of a quarter, black and white striped, of a rack all black, and of a best all white.
    • 1882, Bees, rabbits, and pigeons; how to breed and how to rear them:
      Those would be of different shades of colour according to the time of year at which they were produced, those bred about May-day undergoing no change from their white colour, but from a white rack become a whole skin; […]
    • 1892, Henry Poland, Fur-bearing Animals in Nature and in Commerce, page 289:
      Rabbit skins are sorted into wholes, halves, quarters, racks, and suckers, or very small skins.

Etymology 8

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Noun

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rack (uncountable)

  1. Alternative form of arak
    • 1907, George Manville Fenn, Trapped by Malays: A Tale of Bayonet and Kris, page 347:
      If it was my officers wanted a stone jar of rack or a dozen of bottled ale, I might manage 'em, but I'm nowhere with sacks.
Derived terms
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References

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  1. ^ Bryan A[ndrew] Garner (2022) “rack; wrack”, in Garner’s Modern English Usage: The Authority on Grammar, Usage, and Style, 5th edition, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 919, column 2.
  2. ^ Charles Harrington Elster (2010) The Accidents of Style: Good Advice on How Not to Write Badly, pages 169–170: “In all other familiar contexts, the proper spelling is rack.”
  3. ^ “rack/wrack”, The Mavens’ Word of the Day, April 20, 1998
  4. ^ Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage, 1994:
    “Probably the most sensible attitude would be to ignore the etymologies of rack and wrack (which, of course, is exactly what most people do) and regard them simply as spelling variants of one word. If you choose to toe the line drawn by the commentators, however, you will want to write nerve-racking, rack one’s brains, storm-wracked, and for good measure wrack and ruin. Then you will have nothing to worry about being criticized for — except, of course, for using too many clichés.”
  5. ^ The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, 5th edition, “wrack”, 2015
  6. ^ The Associated Press (2015) The Associated Press Stylebook 2015, “wrack”
  7. ^ Kay, Christian J. and Wotherspoon, Irené. 2002. “Wreak, wrack, rack, and (w)ruin: the History of Some Confused Spellings”, in Sounds, Words, Texts and Change: Papers from 11 ICEHL, ed. by Teresa Fanego, Belen Mendez-Naya and Elena Seoane. Amsterdam: Benjamins, pp. 129–143.
  8. ^ Kay & Wotherspoon, 2002, p. 139 and footnotes 8 and 9, pp. 141–142
  9. ^ “rack”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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Romanian

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Etymology

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Unadapted borrowing from English rack.

Noun

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rack n (plural rackuri)

  1. rack

Declension

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singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative-accusative rack rackul rackuri rackurile
genitive-dative rack rackului rackuri rackurilor
vocative rackule rackurilor

Spanish

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Noun

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rack m (plural racks)

  1. rack

Swedish

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Swedish Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia sv

Noun

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rack n

  1. a rack (for holding electronic equipment)
    serverrack
    server rack
    stereorack
    stereo rack
  2. Synonym of racket (considered erroneous by some – see the usage notes for that entry)

Declension

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Declension of rack
nominative genitive
singular indefinite rack racks
definite racket rackets
plural indefinite rack racks
definite racken rackens

See also

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See also (racket)

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References

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