Wreckage

How to spell wreckage

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wreckage

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wreckage mean?

1. nounThe broken remains of something that has been destroyed, especially after a crash or disaster.

Wreckage in a sentence

• Rescue crews searched the wreckage for survivors after the train derailed.

• Investigators photographed the wreckage before towing it away from the motorway.

Where does wreckage come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The base word 'wreck' came into English through Anglo-Norman French 'wrec', which the Normans had borrowed from Old Norse 'vrek', meaning something driven ashore by the sea. That Norse noun was tied to the verb 'reka', literally 'to drive' or 'to push', so the earliest sense was wood and goods that the waves had pushed onto the beach after a ship broke apart. The silent 'w' at the front is a leftover of that Old Norse and early English spelling, which is the main reason the modern word looks trickier than it sounds. The ending '-age' is a French-derived suffix that turns a base into a collective noun describing the result of an action, much as in 'breakage' or 'spillage'. Combined around the early 1800s, 'wreckage' came to mean the scattered debris left after something is destroyed, whether a ship, a car, or a building.

How the word is built

• wreck (ruined remains)
• -age (noun suffix: collective result)