rack

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   A frame or shelf for holding or hanging things.

   He hung his wet coat on the rack by the door.

2. 2
   verb

   To cause someone great physical or mental pain.

   She racked her brains trying to remember his name.

3. 3
   noun

   A device once used to torture people by stretching their bodies.

   Prisoners were tortured on the rack during that cruel period.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Rack was first recorded for a frame used to stretch materials such as cloth and later for the related instrument of torture; this use produced the verb meaning “torture” and the expression rack your brains. The rack used to hold things is related and was borrowed from Dutch, initially with the sense “manger.” In rack and ruin, however, rack is a variant of wrack, “destruction,” related to wreck.

From Middle English reken, from Old Norse reka (“to be drifted, tost”) The noun is from Middle English rak, rakke, from Middle English rek (“drift; thing tossed ashore; jetsam”), from the verb.

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External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary