Wreck \Wreck\, n. [OE. wrak, AS. wr[ae]c exile, persecution,
misery, from wrecan to drive out, punish; akin to D. wrak,
adj., damaged, brittle, n., a wreck, wraken to reject, throw
off, Icel. rek a thing drifted ashore, Sw. vrak refuse, a
wreck, Dan. vrag. See Wreak, v. t., and cf. Wrack a
marine plant.]
[Written also wrack.]
1. The destruction or injury of a vessel by being cast on
shore, or on rocks, or by being disabled or sunk by the
force of winds or waves; shipwreck.
Hard and obstinate As is a rock amidst the raging
floods, 'Gainst which a ship, of succor desolate,
Doth suffer wreck, both of herself and goods.
--Spenser.
2. Destruction or injury of anything, especially by violence;
ruin; as, the wreck of a railroad train.
The wreck of matter and the crush of worlds.
--Addison.
Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst
the wreck of its political life. --J. R. Green.
3. The ruins of a ship stranded; a ship dashed against rocks
or land, and broken, or otherwise rendered useless, by
violence and fracture; as, they burned the wreck.
4. The remain of anything ruined or fatally injured.
To the fair haven of my native home, The wreck of
what I was, fatigued I come. --Cowper.
5. (Law) Goods, etc., which, after a shipwreck, are cast upon
the land by the sea. --Bouvier.
Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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