wreck
/ˈɹɛk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.96 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A large number of birds that have been brought to the ground, injured or dead, by extremely adverse weather.
Example Sentences
- "He was an emotional wreck after the death of his wife."
- "To the fair haven of my native home, / The vvreck of vvhat I was, fatigued I come, […]"
- "In 2006, 18-year-old Nikki Catsouras was killed in a car wreck in Lake Forest."
- "Hard and obſtinate, / As is a rocke amidſt the raging floods: / gaynſt vvhich a ſhip of ſuccour deſolate, / doth ſuffer vvreck both of her ſelfe and goods."
- "the wrecks of matter and the crush of worlds"
- "Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst the wreck of its political life."
Etymology
From Middle English wrek, from Anglo-Norman wrek, from Old Norse *wrek (whence Norwegian rek, Icelandic rek, Swedish vrak, Danish vrag), from Proto-Germanic *wrekaną (“to pursue”, whence Old English wrecan (English wreak), Old Saxon wrekan, Old High German rëhhan, Gothic 𐍅𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 (wrikan)), from Proto-Indo-European *wreg- (“to track; to hunt; to follow”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: wrek, *wrek, *wrekaną, *wreg-