different between wrack vs wrackful

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?æk/
• Rhymes: -æk
• Homophone: rack

Etymology 1

From Middle English wrake, wrache, wreche, from a merger of Old English wracu, wræc (“misery, suffering”) and Old English wr?? (“vengeance, revenge”). See also wrake.

Noun

wrack (plural wracks)

1. (archaic, dialectal or literary) Vengeance; revenge; persecution; punishment; consequence; trouble.
2. (archaic, except in dialects) Ruin; destruction.

3. The remains; a wreck.
   • 2011, John Jeremiah Sullivan, "Mr. Lytle: An Essay", in Pulphead:

     Lytle was already moaning in shame, fallen back in bed with his hand across his face like he'd just washed up somewhere, a piece of wrack.

Alternative forms

• wrake (obsolete)

Derived terms

• wrack and ruin

Translations

Verb

wrack (third-person singular simple present wracks, present participle wracking, simple past and past participle wracked)

1. (Britain dialectal, transitive) To execute vengeance; avenge.
2. (Britain dialectal, transitive) To worry; tease; torment.

Etymology 2

Late Middle English, from Middle Dutch wrak. Doublet of vraic.

Cognate with German Wrack, Old Norse rek, Danish vrag, Swedish vrak, Old English wræc); also compare Gothic ???????????????????????? (wrikan), ???????????????????????????? (wrakjan, “persecute”), Old Norse reka (“drive”).

Noun

wrack (countable and uncountable, plural wracks)

1. (archaic) Remnant from a shipwreck as washed ashore, or the right to claim such items.
2. Any marine vegetation cast up on shore, especially seaweed of the genus Fucus.
3. Weeds, vegetation or rubbish floating on a river or pond.
4. A high flying cloud; a rack.

Derived terms

• channelled wrack
• flat wrack
• spiral wrack
• tidewrack
• wrack line
• wrack zone

Translations

Verb

wrack (third-person singular simple present wracks, present participle wracking, simple past and past participle wracked or wrackt)

1. (transitive) To wreck, especially a ship (usually in passive).
2. Alternative form of rack (“to cause to suffer pain, etc.”)

Usage notes

Frequently confused with rack (“torture; suffer pain”), though traditionally means “wreck”. Etymologically, wrack and ruin (“complete destruction”) and storm-wracked (“wrecked by a storm”) are the only terms that derive from wrack, rather than rack. However in usage forms such as nerve-wracking are common, and considered acceptable by some authorities; see usage notes for rack.

Derived terms

• storm-wracked

Translations

Anagrams

• crawk

English

Etymology

From Middle English wrakeful, wrakful, equivalent to wrack +? -ful. See also wrake.

Adjective

wrackful (comparative more wrackful, superlative most wrackful)

1. Full of wrack or wreckage; ruinous; destructive.
   • 1904, Henry Leach, The Duke of Devonshire:

     As it happened, his destiny, aided by this opportunity, carried him far beyond, so that the new era in his political fortunes which opened amidst the wrackful confusion in which Liberalism found itself in 1874 and the years immediately following must be accounted the most important and fateful of all.

   • 2000, Brian McNaughton, Even More Nasty Stories:

     No longer surrounded by a wooden shell in a wrackful sea, but by an aluminum box in its slot with all the other boxes, he stared at the pinwheel of stars on the cover of his library book.

   • 2010, Dale M. Moyer Ph. D., The Flash and Outbreak of a Fiery Mind:

     Yes, of course, we worried about the symptoms that were suggestive of a compromised health - the fevers and sweating, poor appetite and weight loss, a wrackful cough with painful breathing and unfamiliar lassitude - all signs producing a fearful trembling in the back of our minds.