The Grammarist agrees it should be rack as well. If things are wrecked, they go to “wrack and ruin.” “Wrack” has to do with ruinous accidents, so if the stock market is wracked by rumors of imminent recession, it’s wrecked. You rack your brains when you stretch them vigorously to search out the truth like a torturer. If you are racked with pain or you feel nerve-racked, you are feeling as if you were being stretched on that Medieval instrument of torture, the rack. Shakespeare was one of many authors who used this.įurther, this book on common English errors says it should be rack: It isn't surprising that 'rack' was adopted as a verb meaning to cause pain and anguish. The crude but, one presumes, effective racks often tore the victim's limbs from their bodies. The PhraseFinder agrees that the phrase is rack your brains, adding: with rack (1) in the verb sense of "to torture on the rack " to wrack one's brains is thus erroneous. The verb meaning "to ruin or wreck" (originally of ships) is recorded from 1560s, from earlier intrans. However, according to this entry for wrack in EtymOnline, the term should be rack: Figurative senses of the verb, deriving from the type of torture in which someone is stretched on a rack, can, however, be spelled either rack or wrack: thus racked with guilt or wracked with guilt rack your brains or wrack your brains. In the phrase rack something up the word is also always spelled rack. The most common noun sense of rack, ‘a framework for holding and storing things’, is always spelled rack, never wrack. The relationship between the forms rack and wrack is complicated. Says that the phrase could use either wrack or rack. The Oxford Dictionary Online (now Oxford Languages)
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