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wrench.

A movement that twists or pulls violently; a tug.

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈɹɛnt͡ʃ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈɹʷɛnt͡ʃ]General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈɹent͡ʃ/Australia[ˈɹʷent͡ʃ] ~ [ˈɹʷe̞nt͡ʃ]Australia
  1. A movement that twists or pulls violently; a tug.

  2. An injury caused by a violent twisting or pulling of a limb; strain, sprain.

  3. A trick or artifice.

    obsolete
  4. Deceit; guile; treachery.

    obsolete
  5. A turn at an acute angle.

    obsolete
  6. A winch or windlass.

    archaic
  7. A screw.

    obsolete
  8. A distorting change from the original meaning.

  9. A hand tool for making rotational adjustments, such as fitting nuts and bolts, or fitting pipes.

    Canada · Philippines · US
  10. An adjustable spanner used by plumbers.

    UK
  11. A violent emotional change caused by separation.

  12. In screw theory, a screw assembled from force and torque vectors arising from application of Newton's laws to a rigid body.

  13. means; contrivance

    obsolete
  14. In coursing, the act of bringing the hare round at less than a right angle, worth half a point in the recognised code of points for judging.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English wrench, from Old English wrenċ, from Proto-Germanic *wrankiz, from Proto-Indo-European *wreng- (“to turn”). Compare German Rank (“plot, intrigue”).

verb/ˈɹɛnt͡ʃ/General-American, Received-Pronunciation[ˈɹʷɛnt͡ʃ]General-American, Received-Pronunciation/ˈɹent͡ʃ/Australia[ˈɹʷent͡ʃ] ~ [ˈɹʷe̞nt͡ʃ]Australia
  1. To pull or twist violently.

    transitive
    With a surge of adrenaline, she wrenched the car door off and pulled out the injured man.
  2. To injure (a joint) by pulling or twisting.

    transitive
    Be careful not to wrench your ankle walking along those loose stones!
  3. To distort the original meaning of; to misrepresent.

    transitive
  4. To rack with pain; to make hurt or distressed.

    transitive
  5. To deprive by means of a violent pull or twist.

    transitive
  6. To use a wrench; to twist with a wrench.

    transitive
    The plumber wrenched the pipes until they came loose.
  7. To violently move in a turn or writhe.

    intransitive · obsolete
  8. To tighten with or as if with a winch.

    obsolete · transitive
  9. To thrust (a weapon) in a twisting motion.

    obsolete · transitive
  10. To disarm an opponent by whirling their blade away.

    intransitive · obsolete
Where this word comes from

From Middle English wrenchen, from Old English wrenċan, from Proto-West Germanic *wrankijan, from Proto-Germanic *wrankijaną. Compare German renken.

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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.