rack
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Contents |
English [edit]
Pronunciation [edit]
Etymology 1 [edit]
See Dutch rekken
Noun [edit]
rack (plural racks)
- A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other
- A frame on which to hang various items.
- A device used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.
- A pair of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).
- A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs
- I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher's yesterday.
- (billiards, snooker, pool) A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.
- See [1]
- (slang) A woman's breasts.
- You should see her rack. Her tits are amazing, and so are her mother's!
- (climbing, caving) A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with 5 or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded. Also rappel rack, abseil rack.
- (climbing, slang) A climber's set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, karabiners, nuts, Friends, etc.
- I used almost a full rack on the second pitch.
Derived terms [edit]
Translations [edit]
series of shelves
torture device
frame for hanging objects
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woman's breasts
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Verb [edit]
rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)
- To place in or hang on a rack.
- To torture (someone) on the rack.
- Alexander Pope
- He was racked and miserably tormented.
- 2011, Thomas Penn, Winter King, Penguin 2012, p. 228:
- As the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt later recalled, his father, Henry VII's jewel-house keeper Henry Wyatt, had been racked on the orders of Richard III, who had sat there and watched.
- Alexander Pope
- To cause (someone) to suffer pain.
- Milton
- Vaunting aloud but racked with deep despair.
- Milton
- (figuratively) To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.
- Shakespeare
- Try what my credit can in Venice do; / That shall be racked even to the uttermost.
- Spenser
- The landlords there shamefully rack their tenants.
- Fuller
- They rack a Scripture simile beyond the true intent thereof.
- Shakespeare
- (billiards, snooker, pool) To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.
- (slang) To strike a male in the groin with the knee.
- To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.
- (mining) To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.
- (nautical) To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.
Translations [edit]
to place or hang on a rack
billiards, snooker, pool: to place the balls in a triangular rack on the table
slang: to strike a male in the groin with the knee
Etymology 2 [edit]
Old English reċċan (“to stretch out, extend”)
Verb [edit]
rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)
- stretch joints of a person
Derived terms [edit]
Translations [edit]
stretch joints of a person
Etymology 3 [edit]
Probably from Old Norse reka (“to be drifted, tost”)[1]
Verb [edit]
rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)
- To fly, as vapour or broken clouds
Translations [edit]
To fly, as vapour or broken clouds
Etymology 4 [edit]
Middle English rakken
Verb [edit]
rack (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)
- (brewing) To clarify, and thereby deter further fermentation of, beer, wine or cider by draining or siphoning it from the dregs.
Translations [edit]
References [edit]
- ^ rack in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
