Forms: 4–5, Sc. 6–7 wrak, 5 Sc. wrac, 6–7 wracke, 6– wrack (9 Sc. vrack). [a. MDu. (also mod. Du.) wrak neut. (older Flem. wracke, Kilian), or MLG. wrak, wrack (whence G. wrack), MDa. vrak (Da. vrag) neut., MSw. vrak (wrack, wragh; Sw. vrak) neut., Norw. dial. rak neut., wreck, wrecked vessel, a parallel formation to OE. wræc WRACK sb.1
Except for its frequent use by southern writers between 1508 and 1690 (cf. the note to WRACK sb.1), the form is predominantly northern and Scottish.]
1. A wrecked ship or other vessel; a vessel ruined or crippled by wreck. Now dial.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Man of Law’s T., 513. The Constable of the Castel down is fare To seen this wrak and al the shipe he soghte.
1626. Capt. J. Smith, Accid. Yng. Seamen, 29. She will … split or billage on a Rocke, a wracke.
1636. G. Sandys, Paraphr. Ps. xlviii. 76. Blacke Eurus roars, And spreads his wracks on Tharsian shores.
1687. A. Lovell, trans. Thevenot’s Trav., I. 126. Close by shoar we saw the wrack of that Saique, which stranded the same day.
1692. in Rec. Convent. Burghs Scot. (1880), IV. 594. His ship become a wrak.
1756. in Hist. Coll. Essex Inst. (U.S.A.), V. 158/1. Drowned from the wrack of the sch[ooner]. Ibid. The sea came and washed them over from the said wrack.
1772. Anne Lindsay, Auld Robin Gray, v. But hard blew the winds, and his ship was a wrack.
1862. Longf., Birds of Passage, II. The Cumberland, vi. Down went the Cumberland all a wrack.
1905. Cornh. Mag., Feb., 209. ‘Wracks, man,’ he shouted,… pointing to the double lighthouse,… ‘there is no chance of wracks for a puir fisherbody noo.’
transf. (of persons). 1589. Greene, Menaphon (Arb.), 27. Menaphon … espied certain fragments of a broken ship floating vpon the waues, and sundrie persons driuen vpon the shore…. These three (as distressed wrackes) preserued by some further forepoynting fate [etc.].
1594. Shaks., Rich. III., I. iv. 24. Me thoughts, I saw a thousand fearfull wrackes: A thousand men that Fishes gnaw’d vpon. Ibid. (1601), Twel. N., V. i. 82. That most ingratefull boy … From the rude seas … Did I redeeme: a wracke past hope he was.
b. Remnants of, or goods from, a wrecked vessel, esp. as driven or cast ashore; shipwrecked effects or property, wreckage; also in earlier use, the right to have such. Now arch.
1428. Excheq. Rolls Scotl., IV. 439. Le wrak cujusdam navis combuste infra portum de Leth.
1452. Reg. Mag. Sig. Scot., 125/1. Invenerunt dictum forestarium custodem de Wrac et Waif infra dictum dominium de Coldingham.
1501. Extr. Aberd. Reg. (1844), I. 428. Ane brokin schip,… quhilk, throw storme of sey, happin to brek, and the wrak of hir come in on the cost of Croudane.
1584. Greene, Morando, Wks. (Grosart), III. 84. Tis an ill flaw that bringeth vp no wracke.
1599. Shaks., Hen. V., I. ii. 165. As rich … As is the Owse and bottome of the Sea With sunken Wrack.
1639. in Maitland, Hist. Edinburgh (1753), II. 151/1. All their antient Rights,… with Pit and Gallows, Sack and Soke, Thole, Theam, Vert, Wrack, Waifs [etc.].
a. 1662. Heylin, Cosmogr., I. (1669), 71. Charybdis is a Gulf … which violently attracting all Vessels that come too nigh it, devoureth them, and casteth up their wracks [ed. 1652 wrecks].
1670. Dryden, Conq. Granada, IV. i. My own lost Wealth thou giv’st not only back, But driv’st upon my Coast my Pyrat’s Wrack.
1759. Philipott, Villare Cant., 11. Witsom were goods driven to the shore, when there had not been for some space any wrack visible.
1883. Whitelaw, Sophocles, Antigone, 591. Casting up mire and blackness and storm-vext wrack of the sea.
1897. Longm. Mag., Feb., 333. Through the heaped mysteries of waith and wrack, When the long wave from the long beach draws back.
† c. pl. Fragments of wreckage. Also fig. Obs.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, II. (1912), 350. Who then myselfe should flie So close unto my selfe my wrackes doo lie.
2. The total or partial disablement or destruction of a vessel by any disaster or accident of navigation; = SHIPWRECK sb. 2. Now rare.
1579. Gosson, Sch. Abuse (Arb.), 41. I haue in my voyage suffred wrack with Vlisses.
1590. Spenser, F. Q., I. vi. 1. As when a ship … An hidden rocke escaped hath vnwares, That lay in waite her wrack for to bewaile.
1615. G. Sandys, Trav., 2. Glad that with wracke of ship, and losse of goods they may prolong a despised life.
1648. G. Daniel, Eclog, v. 331. In a wracke, wee trust A Sayle-yard, or a Planke of broken Chest, To carrie vs.
1673. Dryden, 2 Pt. Conq. Granada (ed. 2), III. 105. As Seamen, parting in a gen’ral wrack, When first the loosening Planks begin to crack Each catches one.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), s.v. Flotson, Jetson, or Goods cast out of the Ship, being in danger of Wrack.
a. 1879. Hunter-Duvar, D’Anville’s Fleet, in Poems of Places, Brit. Amer., 35. In the wrack tall mast would crack.
b. fig. and in fig. context.
1580. H. Gifford, Posie of Gilloflowers (1870), 52. Fell Sathan is chiefe rular of these seas: Hee seekes our wracke, he doth these tempestes rayse.
a. 1586. Sidney, Arcadia, V. Wks. 1922, II. 150. Yet being imbarqued in the same ship, the finall wrack must needs be common to them all.
1600. Dekker, Fortunatus, Wks. 1873, I. 114. Ryot sets up sayles, And … Drives your unsteddie fortunes on the point of wracke inevitable.
1611. Speed, Hist. Gt. Brit., VI. lii. § 7. When Seas did foame … His force effecting with his cares preuented still my wracke.
1628. Feltham, Resolves, II. ii. 5. Hee that steeres by that gale, is euer in danger of wracke.
1649. G. Daniel, Trinarch., Rich. II., vii. The greater winds of Faction broke in here, To make a wracke.
a. 1699. J. Beaumont, Psyche, I. ccxxxiv. That venturing any longer stay to make, Was but to run upon a certain wrack.
3. Marine vegetation, seaweed or the like, cast ashore by the waves or growing on the tidal seashore. (Cf. WRECK sb.1 2, VAREC 1.)
Also cart-, grass-, kelp-, lady-, sea-wrack.
In first quot. the precise sense is not quite clear.
1513. Douglas, Æneid, III. ix. 34. Rent me in pecis, and in the fludis swak, Or droun law vndir the large seis wrak.
1551–. [see SEA-WRACK 2].
1650. [W. Howe], Phytol. Brit., 10. Divers sorts of Sea-Oake, or Wrack.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., 71. Herbs … growing commonly upon Stones and Rocks in the Sea: 14. Wrack.
1700. Wallace, Descr. Orkney (1883), 42, note. When the sea-weed is driven in greater plenty, all the people … divide the wrack according to the proportion of land they have.
1716. Petiveriana, I. 159. Full of small seedy Warts as in our common Wrach or Quercus maritima.
1785. Martyn, Lett. Bot., xxxii. 500. Fucus, Wrack, or Sea-weed properly so called, has two kinds of bladders.
1849. H. Miller, Footpr. Creat., i. 10. The shores … of the lake were strewed … by a line of wrack, consisting … of marine plants [etc.].
1855. Kingsley, Glaucus, 57. The purple and olive wreaths of wrack, and bladder-weed, and tangle.
1880. Antrim & Down Gloss., 78. The farmers grow sea-weed for manure, cutting the wrack periodically…. Stones are placed for the wrack to grow on.
b. Weeds, rubbish, waste, etc., floating on, or washed down or ashore by, a river, pond, or the like; = WRECK sb.1 2 b.
1598–. water-wrack [see WATER sb. 29].
1851. H. Stephens, Bk. Farm (ed. 2), I. 396/2. To prevent the wrack floating on the surface of the water finding its way into the sluice.
1865. Livingstone, Zambesi, i. 14. When we came within five or six miles of the land, the yellowish-green tinge of the sea … was suddenly succeeded by muddy water with wrack, as of a river in flood. Ibid. The wrack, consisting of reeds, sticks and leaves.
1877. V. L. Cameron, Across Africa, I. 63. I observed wrack of grass and twigs in the branches of small trees…, showing how high the floods … must be at times.
c. Field-weeds, roots of couch-grass or the like, esp. as loosened from the soil to be collected for burning; vegetable rubbish or refuse found on agricultural lands; = WRECK sb.1 2 c.
1715. Pennecuik, Tweeddale, 6. [They] will not suffer the Wrack to be taken of their Land, because (say they) it keeps the Corn warm.
1825. Jamieson, Wrack, Dog’s grass,… Triticum repens, Linn.; Roxb. Perhaps denominated Wrack, because … it is harrowed out in the fall, and burnt.
1883. Longm. Mag., April, 658. Seed has to be sown, turnips have to be thinned and hoed … and ‘wrack’ gathered.
1894. Heslop, Northumbld. Gloss., 799. Wrack, weeds; especially ‘whickens’ and sea-weed.
4. attrib. and Comb., as † wrack-ship (= sense 1); † wrack-rich; wrack-threatened, -threatening; also † wrackfree, WRECKFREE a.; † wrack-goods [cf. Du. wrakgoederen, G. wrackgut] Scots Law, = sense 1 b; wrack-spangle local (see quot. 1856).
1570. in W. Boys, Hist. Sandwich (1792), 775. Savyng that we shalbe wrakfree of oure owne goodes whatsoever.
1594. Shaks., Lucr., 590. All which together like a troubled Ocean, Beat at thy rockie, and wracke-threatning heart.
1598. J. Dickenson, Greene in Conc. (1878), 138. More deafe … then are the wrack-rich Libique rocks.
1603. J. Davies (Heref.), Microcosmos, Wks. (Grosart), I. 38/2. A Sternelesse Shippe … On mightiest Seas, wrack-threatn’d on each syde.
1671. Shetland Docum., in Proc. Soc. Ant. Scot. (1892), XXVI. 194. To … secure all wrack and waith goods.
1681. Stair, Instit., vii. 76. Our Custome agrees with … other Nations, except in the Matter of waith and wrack Goods. Ibid. (1693), (ed. 2), III. iii. 420. Where the Wrack ship is, the Owner may be known by Writs in the Ship.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Wrecfry,… wrack-free, exempt or freed from the forfeiture of Shipwracked Goods and Vessels to the King.
1856. Househ. Words, 8 Nov., 391/1. Wrack-spangle, the popular name of these things, implies that they deck the sea-weeds as spangles adorn robes. The savans call them Serpulæ.
