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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

wreck.

Something or someone that has been ruined.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɹɛk//ˈɹæk/dialectal, obsolete
  1. Something or someone that has been ruined.

    He was an emotional wreck after the death of his wife.
  2. The remains of something that has been severely damaged or worn down.

  3. An event in which something is damaged through collision.

  4. An event in which something is damaged through collision. A shipwreck: an event in which a ship is heavily damaged or destroyed.

    specifically
  5. Goods, etc. cast ashore by the sea after a shipwreck.

    uncountable
  6. A large number of birds that have been brought to the ground, injured or dead, by extremely adverse weather.

Where this word comes from

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”).

verb/ˈɹɛk//ˈɹæk/dialectal, obsolete
  1. To destroy violently; to cause severe damage to something, to a point where it no longer works, or is useless.

    transitive
    He wrecked the car in a collision.
    That adulterous hussy wrecked my marriage!
  2. To ruin or dilapidate.

    transitive
  3. To plunder goods from wrecked ships.

    obsolete · transitive
  4. To dismantle wrecked vehicles or other objects, to reclaim any useful parts.

    Australia · transitive
  5. To involve in a wreck; hence, to cause to suffer ruin; to balk of success, and bring disaster on.

    transitive
  6. To be involved in a wreck; to be damaged or destroyed.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

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”).

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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.