RACK • FREE-TRANSLATOR.COM • Definition of Rack

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Rack

noun

1.

Framework for holding objects.

2.

Rib section of a forequarter of veal or pork or especially lamb or mutton.

3.

The destruction or collapse of something. Synonym: wrack.

4.

An instrument of torture that stretches or disjoints or mutilates victims. Synonym: wheel.

5.

A support for displaying various articles. Synonym: stand.

6.

A form of torture in which pain is inflicted by stretching the body.

7.

A rapid gait of a horse in which each foot strikes the ground separately. Synonym: single-foot.

verb

(past & past part. racked; pres. part. racking)

1.

Go at a rack. Synonym: single-foot.

2.

Stretch to the limits.

3.

Put on a rack and pinion.

4.

Obtain by coercion or intimidation. Synonyms: extort, gouge, squeeze, wring. "They squeezed money from the owner of the business by threatening him"

5.

Run before a gale. Synonym: scud.

6.

Fly in high wind.

7.

Draw off from the lees.

8.

Torment emotionally or mentally. Synonyms: excruciate, torment, torture.

9.

Work on a rack.

10.

Seize together, as of parallel ropes of a tackle in order to prevent running through the block.

11.

Torture on the rack.

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WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University

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"Rack" Quotes from Famous Books

... all wholesome contour and had given to his stomach, a chronic distention, but had depleted his frame and shrunken his limbs so that physically he was that common enough type of the hopeless alcoholic—a meagre rack of a man burdened amidships by an ...

— The Thunders of Silence • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb

... wrong? No; it should be bitter: bitterness is strength—it is a tonic. Sweet, mild force following acute suffering you find nowhere; to talk of it is delusion. There may be apathetic exhaustion after the rack. If energy remains, it will be rather a dangerous energy—deadly when confronted ...

— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... produced on Krafft by the name of the expected visitor, his hands trembled with anger. If the fellow had stood looking at him for another second, he would have got up and knocked him down. But Krafft turned nonchalantly to the piano, where his attention was caught by a song that was standing on the rack. He chuckled, and set about making merciless fun of the music—the composer was an elderly singing-teacher, of local fame. Madeleine grew angry, and tried to ...

— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... we talked enough yet, Misses Brown?' returned the Grinder, who, between his sense of injury, his sense of liquor, and his sense of being on the rack, had become so lachrymose, that at almost every answer he scooped his coats into one or other of his eyes, and uttered an unavailing whine of remonstrance. 'Did she laugh that night, was it? Didn't you ask if she ...

— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... my Lord, to render up my trust, to resign my situation as the agent of your estates—I do so with pain, but the course of your lordship's life has left me no other alternative. I cannot rack and goad your tenants, nor injure your own property. I cannot paralyze industry, cramp honest exertion, or distress poverty still further, merely to supply necessities which are little less than criminal in yourself and ...

— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton

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