noun
a. A framework or stand in or on which to hold, hang, or display various articles: a trophy rack; a rack for baseball bats in the dugout; a drying rack for laundry.
b. Games A triangular frame for arranging billiard or pool balls at the start of a game.
c. A receptacle for livestock feed.
d. A frame for holding bombs in an aircraft.
- Slang
a. A bunk or bed.
b. Sleep: tried to get some rack.
- A toothed bar that meshes with a gearwheel, pinion, or other toothed machine part.
a. A state of intense anguish.
b. A cause of intense anguish.
- An instrument of torture on which the victim's body was stretched.
- A pair of antlers.
- Vulgar Slang A woman's breasts.
transitive verb
racked, rack·ing, racks - To place (billiard balls, for example) in a rack.
- also wrack To cause great physical or mental suffering to: Pain racked his entire body. See Synonyms at afflict.
- To torture by means of the rack.
Phrasal Verbs: rack out Slang To go to sleep or get some sleep.
rack up Informal To accumulate or score:
rack up points. Origin of rack
Middle English
rakke probably from Middle Dutch
rec framework ; see
reg- in Indo-European roots.
Related Forms:
noun
A fast, flashy, four-beat gait of a horse in which each foot touches the ground separately and at equal intervals.
intransitive verb
racked, rack·ing, racks To go or move at a rack.
Origin of rack
Origin unknown also wrack
noun
A thin mass of wind-driven clouds.
Origin of rack
Middle English
rak probably of Scandinavian origin Swedish
rak wreckage transitive verb
racked, rack·ing, racks To drain (wine or cider) from the dregs.
Origin of rack
Middle English
rakken from Old Provençal
arracar from raca stems and husks of grapes
Noun (plural racks)
- A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other
- Any of various kinds of frame for holding clothes, bottles, animal fodder, mined ore, shot on a vessel, etc.
- (nautical) A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes; called also rack block.
- A distaff.
- A bar with teeth on its face, or edge, to work with those of a wheel, pinion, or worm, which is to drive or be driven by it.
- A device used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.
- A pair of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).
- A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs.
- I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher's yesterday.
- (billiards, snooker, pool) A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.
- See
- (slang) A woman's breasts.
- You should see her rack. Her tits are amazing, and so are her mother's!
- (climbing, caving) A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with 5 or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded. Also rappel rack, abseil rack.
- (climbing, slang) A climber's set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, karabiners, nuts, Friends, etc.
- I used almost a full rack on the second pitch.
- An instrument for bending a bow.
- A grate on which bacon is laid.
Verb (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)
- To place in or hang on a rack.
- To torture (someone) on the rack.
- To cause (someone) to suffer pain.
- (figuratively) To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.
- (billiards, snooker, pool) To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.
- (slang) To strike a male in the groin with the knee.
- To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.
- (mining) To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.
- (nautical) To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.
Verb (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)
- stretch joints of a person
Origin Old English reÄ‹Ä‹an (“to stretch out, extend")
Verb (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)
- To fly, as vapour or broken clouds
Noun (uncountable)
- Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapour in the sky.
Origin Probably from Old Norse reka (“to be drifted, tost")
Verb (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)
- (brewing) To clarify, and thereby deter further fermentation of, beer, wine or cider by draining or siphoning it from the dregs.
Origin Middle English rakken
Verb (third-person singular simple present racks, present participle racking, simple past and past participle racked)
- (of a horse) To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace.
Noun (plural racks)
- A fast amble.
Origin See rack (“that which stretches"), or rock (verb).
Noun (plural racks)
- (obsolete) A wreck; destruction.
