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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

rack.

A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ɹæk/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ɹak/British, Northern-England, Southern, Standard/ɾak/Scotland, Wales/ɹɛk/New-Zealand
  1. A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other.

  2. Any of various kinds of frame for holding luggage or other objects on a vehicle or vessel.

  3. A device, incorporating a ratchet, used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.

    historical
  4. A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes.

  5. A bunk.

    especially · slang
  6. Sleep.

    broadly · slang · uncountable
  7. A distaff.

  8. A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with those of a gearwheel, pinion, or worm, which is to drive or be driven by it.

  9. A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with a pawl as a ratchet allowing movement in one direction only, used for example in a handbrake or crossbow.

  10. A cranequin, a mechanism including a rack, pinion and pawl, providing both mechanical advantage and a ratchet, used to bend and cock a crossbow.

  11. A set of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).

  12. A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs.

    I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher's yesterday.
  13. A bone of a horse.

    obsolete
  14. A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.

  15. A plastic tray used for holding and moving chips.

  16. A woman's breasts.

    slang · vulgar
  17. A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded.

    rappel rack
    abseil rack
  18. A climber's set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, carabiners, nuts, Friends, etc.

    slang
    I used almost a full rack on the second pitch.
  19. A grate on which bacon is laid.

  20. A set with a distributive binary operation whose action on the set is invertible.

  21. A thousand dollars, especially if the proceeds are from a crime.

    slang
Where this word comes from

From Middle English rakke, rekke, from Middle Dutch rac, recke, rec (Dutch rek), see rekken.

verb/ɹæk/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ɹak/British, Northern-England, Southern, Standard/ɾak/Scotland, Wales/ɹɛk/New-Zealand
  1. To place in or hang on a rack.

  2. To torture (someone) on the rack.

  3. To cause (someone) to suffer pain.

  4. To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.

    figuratively
  5. To alternately concatenate two words to magical effect.

    obsolete
  6. To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.

  7. To strike in the testicles.

    slang · transitive
  8. To shoplift (especially in a megastore), often by taking off of a rack.

    slang
    He racked three boxes of gum!
  9. To take that which belongs to another, without regard of right or permission.

    broadly
  10. To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.

  11. To move the slide bar on a shotgun in order to chamber the next round.

  12. To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.

  13. To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.

  14. To tend to shear a structure (that is, force it to bend, lean, or move in different directions at different points).

    Post-and-lintel construction racks easily.
Where this word comes from

From Old English reċċan (“to stretch out, extend”).

verb/ɹæk/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ɹak/British, Northern-England, Southern, Standard/ɾak/Scotland, Wales/ɹɛk/New-Zealand
  1. To drive; move; go forward rapidly; stir.

  2. To fly, as vapour or broken clouds.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English reken, from Old Norse reka (“to be drifted, tost”) The noun is from Middle English rak, rakke, from Middle English rek (“drift; thing tossed ashore; jetsam”), from the verb.

noun/ɹæk/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ɹak/British, Northern-England, Southern, Standard/ɾak/Scotland, Wales/ɹɛk/New-Zealand
  1. Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapour in the sky.

    uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English reken, from Old Norse reka (“to be drifted, tost”) The noun is from Middle English rak, rakke, from Middle English rek (“drift; thing tossed ashore; jetsam”), from the verb.

verb/ɹæk/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ɹak/British, Northern-England, Southern, Standard/ɾak/Scotland, Wales/ɹɛk/New-Zealand
  1. To clarify, and thereby deter further fermentation of, beer, wine or cider by draining or siphoning it from the dregs.

Where this word comes from

Inherited from Middle English rakken.

verb/ɹæk/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ɹak/British, Northern-England, Southern, Standard/ɾak/Scotland, Wales/ɹɛk/New-Zealand
  1. To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace.

Where this word comes from

See rack (“that which stretches”), or rock (verb).

noun/ɹæk/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ɹak/British, Northern-England, Southern, Standard/ɾak/Scotland, Wales/ɹɛk/New-Zealand
  1. A fast amble.

Where this word comes from

See rack (“that which stretches”), or rock (verb).

noun/ɹæk/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ɹak/British, Northern-England, Southern, Standard/ɾak/Scotland, Wales/ɹɛk/New-Zealand
  1. A wreck; destruction.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

See wreck.

noun/ɹæk/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ɹak/British, Northern-England, Southern, Standard/ɾak/Scotland, Wales/ɹɛk/New-Zealand
  1. A young rabbit, or its skin.

    obsolete
Where this word comes from

Uncertain. Perhaps a contraction of rabbock, an alteration ( + -ock) of rabbit.

noun/ɹæk/Australia, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ɹak/British, Northern-England, Southern, Standard/ɾak/Scotland, Wales/ɹɛk/New-Zealand
  1. Alternative form of arak.

    alt-of · alternative · uncountable
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.