Rack

How to spell rack

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce rack

What does rack mean?

1. nounA framework, shelf, or set of bars built to hold, store, or display objects.
2. verbTo cause great strain or anguish to, or to strain something in search of an answer.

Rack in a sentence

• noun

  He hung his coat on the rack by the door.

• verb

  The deadline began to rack his nerves.

• noun

  The bottles were stored sideways in a wooden rack.

• verb

  A sharp pain seemed to rack her whole body.

Where does rack come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Rack arrived in late Middle English, around the 1300s, most likely from Middle Dutch rec or Middle Low German rek, meaning a framework, bar, or shelf, and ultimately from a Germanic root that carried the sense of stretching or reaching out. The earliest English uses described a wooden framework, including the notorious instrument of torture on which a prisoner's limbs were literally stretched, which is why we still say a person is 'racked with pain' or 'racks his brains'. Over time the framework sense broadened to cover any structure built to hold things, from a luggage rack to a wine rack to a rack of lamb (the joint of ribs sitting on its bony frame). Rack has a tricky lookalike in 'wrack', a separate word tied to wreckage and seaweed, which is why 'nerve-racking' and 'rack and ruin' are so often misspelled. The clean, single-syllable spelling with no silent letters belongs to this framework word, while the w-front variant belongs to the wreck family.

How the word is built

• rack (single root, Germanic; related to the idea of a frame that stretches or supports)