pain-racked

English

Alternative forms

• pain-wracked

Etymology

Variant of “racked with pain”, in sense rack (“suffer pain, torture”); see usage notes for rack.

Adjective

pain-racked (comparative more pain-racked, superlative most pain-racked)

1. Racked with pain, in pain, suffering.
   • 1786, “Poetry”, in Walker's Hibernian Magazine, Or, Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge, page 661:

     ’Tis thine to ease the pain-racked breast, With doubts, with trembling fear o’erwhelm’d

   • 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:

     Quieter and yet more quiet grew the sea, quiet as the soft mist that brooded on her bosom, and covered up her troubling, as the illusive wreaths of sleep brood upon a pain-racked mind, causing it to forget its sorrow.

   • 1988 June 28, “Foot Pain Is No Laughing Matter: At Last—Here’s Instant Relief!”, in Weekly World News, page (insert):

     It’s designed to apply the natural laws of foot motion to pain-racked feet. … Order today and say goodbye forever to sore, tired, pain-racked feet!

See also

• nerve-racking
• storm-wracked