wreckage

C2+ Topic:General Vocabulary

US /ˈrɛkɪdʒ/ UK /ˈrɛkɪdʒ/ See IPA manual

Meanings

1

noun
the remains of something that has been badly damaged or destroyed

Rescuers searched the smoldering wreckage for survivors.

Thesaurus

Synonyms

1 noun · the remains of something... debris ruins remains rubble detritus wrack

Word family

Related forms wreck wrecked wrecker

Etymology

From wreck + -age. Wreck derives from Anglo-Norman wrec, from Old Norse *wrek ('thing driven ashore'), related to reka ('to drive').

wrec Old French reka Old Norse

View etymology graph ->

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# wreckage

**Type:** Word
**Level:** C2+
**Part of speech:** noun
**IPA (US):** /ˈrɛkɪdʒ/
**IPA (UK):** /ˈrɛkɪdʒ/

## Meanings
1. the remains of something that has been badly damaged or destroyed

## Examples
- Rescuers searched the smoldering wreckage for survivors.

## Synonyms
- debris
- ruins
- remains
- rubble
- detritus
- wrack

## Related Forms
- wreck
- wrecked
- wrecker

## Roots and Affixes
- Root: wrec
- Root: reka

## Etymology
From wreck + -age. Wreck derives from Anglo-Norman wrec, from Old Norse *wrek ('thing driven ashore'), related to reka ('to drive').

## AI Etymology
wreckage comes from wreck + -age. Wreck derives from Anglo-Norman wrec, from Old Norse *wrek ('thing driven ashore'), related to reka ('to drive'). Morphologically, the word is transparent: -age is attached to the older base named in the history, so the modern form packages an inherited or borrowed stem inside a later English derivative. In modern use, the noun sense is "the remains of something that has been badly damaged or destroyed", which keeps the etymology connected to the word's present dictionary value rather than treating it as a merely historical label. The wider word family includes related English forms such as wreck, wrecked, wrecker, showing how the same base continues to support neighboring English vocabulary. The principal historical forms in the chain include Old French wrec, Old Norse reka, which anchor the explanation in named linguistic material.

## Topics
- General Vocabulary

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wreckage

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