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Wrench   /rɛntʃ/   Listen
noun
Wrench  n.  
1.
Trick; deceit; fraud; stratagem. (Obs.) "His wily wrenches thou ne mayst not flee."
2.
A violent twist, or a pull with twisting. "He wringeth them such a wrench." "The injurious effect upon biographic literature of all such wrenches to the truth, is diffused everywhere."
3.
A sprain; an injury by twisting, as in a joint.
4.
Means; contrivance. (Obs.)
5.
An instrument, often a simple bar or lever with jaws or an angular orifice either at the end or between the ends, for exerting a twisting strain, as in turning bolts, nuts, screw taps, etc.; a screw key. Many wrenches have adjustable jaws for grasping nuts, etc., of different sizes.
6.
(Mech.) The system made up of a force and a couple of forces in a plane perpendicular to that force. Any number of forces acting at any points upon a rigid body may be compounded so as to be equivalent to a wrench.
Carriage wrench, a wrench adapted for removing or tightening the nuts that confine the wheels on the axles, or for turning the other nuts or bolts of a carriage or wagon.
Monkey wrench. See under Monkey.
Wrench hammer, a wrench with the end shaped so as to admit of being used as a hammer.



verb
Wrench  v. t.  (past & past part. wrenched; pres. part. wrenching)  
1.
To pull with a twist; to wrest, twist, or force by violence. "Wrench his sword from him." "Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched With a woeful agony."
2.
To strain; to sprain; hence, to distort; to pervert. "You wrenched your foot against a stone."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Wrench" Quotes from Famous Books



... two. For a short time they strained and struggled and writhed, and then stout William gave his most cunning trip and throw, but the stranger met it with greater skill than his, and so the trip came to nought. Then, of a sudden, with a twist and a wrench, the stranger loosed himself, and he of the scar found himself locked in a pair of arms that fairly made his ribs crack. So, with heavy, hot breathing, they stood for a while straining, their bodies all glistening with sweat, and great drops of sweat trickling down ...
— The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood • Howard Pyle

... slope to the beach, skidding the last few feet, saving himself from going headfirst into the water only by a painful wrench ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton

... wrench to him to leave Agatha again so soon, in the first full force of his passion. But he left her almost happily. His love for her was rising up and filling his whole existence. And it is not those lives that are frittered away in a ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... are remote corners, even of the United States, where the primitive conditions still subsist, and where woman still bears her old-time relation to industry, where the industrial life of the girl flows on with no gap or wrench into the occupational life of the married woman. Through wifehood and motherhood she indeed adds to her burdens, and complicates her responsibilities, but otherwise she spends her days in much the same fashion as before, with some deduction, often, alas, inadequate, ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry

... course, for in the matter of legends he could not seem to restrain himself; but I do not repeat his tale because there was nothing plausible about it except that the Hero wrenched this column into its present screw-shape with his hands —just one single wrench. All the rest of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain


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