wreak.
To cause harm; to afflict; to inflict; to harm or injure; to let out harm.
Meaning & usage
To cause harm; to afflict; to inflict; to harm or injure; to let out harm.
The earthquake wreaked havoc in the city.
She wreaked her anger on his car.
To chasten, or chastise/chastize, or castigate, or punish, or smite.
The police abused their authority to wreak an innocent.
The criminal has been wreaked by the Judge to spend a year in prison.
To inflict or take vengeance on.
To take vengeance for.
Misspelling of reek.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English wreken, from Old English wrecan, from Proto-West Germanic *wrekan, from Proto-Germanic *wrekaną, from Proto-Indo-European *wreg- (“push, shove, drive, track down”). Cognate via Proto-Germanic with Dutch wreken, German rächen, Swedish vräka; cognate via PIE with Latin urgēre (English urge), and distantly cognate with English wreck.
Revenge; vengeance; furious passion; resentment.
Punishment; retribution; payback.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English wreke, wrake, Northern Middle English variants of wreche, influenced later by Etymology 1, above. Compare Dutch wraak.
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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.