# rack

Pronunciation: say "RAK" /ɹæk/

## Noun

1. A framework of bars, rails, pegs, or shelves used to hold, hang, store, display, or carry things, such as a wine rack, roof rack, or oven rack.
   - Simple: A frame with bars, hooks, or shelves that holds, stores, or carries things.
   - _Bottles of wine lay on their sides in a tall wooden rack._
   - _Each rack in the warehouse holds pallets on five levels._
2. A cut of meat made up of several adjacent ribs.
   - Simple: A piece of meat with several ribs still joined side by side.
   - _The chef seared the rack of venison and sliced it into thick chops at the table._
   - _She brushed barbecue sauce over the rack and slid it back onto the grill._
4. A straight bar with teeth along one edge that mesh with a gearwheel or pinion, or that engage a pawl so movement is possible in one direction only.
   - Simple: A metal bar with teeth along it that fit into a gear wheel or a catch.
   - _On the steepest section the locomotive engages a central rack laid between the rails._
   - _Turning the steering wheel spins a pinion that slides the rack from side to side._
7. A torture device, worked by a ratchet, that stretched a victim's body beyond its natural limits.
   - Simple: A machine once used to hurt people by stretching their body much too far.
   - _The jailers threatened him with the rack, and he signed the confession that night._
   - _A replica of the rack stands in the dungeon, its wooden rollers worn smooth._
10. The full set of antlers carried by a deer, moose, elk, or similar animal.
   - Simple: The antlers on the head of a deer, moose, or elk.
   - _The bull elk lowered his rack and charged at his rival._
   - _A ten-point rack hung above the fireplace in the hunting lodge._
11. In billiards and snooker, a hollow triangular frame used to set the balls in position at the start of a game.
   - Simple: In pool or snooker, the triangle used to put the balls in place before a game.
   - _Pack the balls tightly against the front of the rack before you lift it away._
   - _Before each game, he rolled the balls into the rack and lifted it off carefully._
8. A woman's breasts. *(slang)*
   - Simple: The breasts of a woman.
   - _The comedian's tired jokes about his co-star's rack drew more groans than laughs._
   - _She told him, quite firmly, that her rack was none of his business._
14. A thousand dollars, especially money gained from a crime. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A thousand dollars, often money that came from a crime.
   - _The dealer flashed a rack he had made selling stolen phones._
   - _After the robbery, each of them walked away with twenty racks._
16. A plastic tray for holding and carrying gambling chips.
   - Simple: A plastic tray used to hold and carry chips in a casino or card game.
   - _After a lucky night at the poker table, she cashed out two full racks of chips._
   - _The pit boss brought a fresh rack to the table when the dealer ran low._
17. A bunk, especially one aboard a ship. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A bunk, the kind of narrow bed sailors sleep in on a ship.
   - _He stowed his sea bag under the rack and pulled the curtain shut._
   - _Recruits who failed to make their racks properly got extra duty._
18. Sleep; time spent sleeping. *(slang)*
   - Simple: Sleep, or time spent sleeping.
   - _After a double watch, all she wanted was a few hours of rack._
   - _The recruits grabbed whatever rack they could between drills._

## Verb

3. To cause someone to suffer pain or torment.
   - Simple: To make someone feel a lot of pain.
   - _Doubts rack him whenever he has to make a big decision._
   - _She was racked with guilt for years after the accident._
5. To stretch or strain something, or to harass or oppress people by extortion.
   - Simple: To push something too far, or to treat people badly by taking too much money from them.
   - _Absentee landlords racked their tenants with ever higher rents._
   - _There is no point trying to rack your brain for a password you never wrote down._
6. To place something in a rack or hang it on one.
   - Simple: To put something on or in a rack.
   - _Rack the weights when you're finished so the next person can use the bench._
   - _The baker racked the fresh loaves by the window to cool._
12. To gather the balls in the triangular rack and set them in position on the table.
   - Simple: To put the balls in the triangle and set them up on the table for a new game.
   - _You won the last game, so it's my turn to rack._
   - _She racked the balls tight and stepped back for her opponent to break._
13. To torture someone on the rack, a frame that stretches the body.
   - Simple: To hurt someone badly by stretching their body on a machine made for torture.
   - _The prisoner was racked twice but still refused to name his accomplices._
   - _His interrogators warned that they would rack him if he did not confess by morning._
9. To siphon or drain beer, wine, or cider off its dregs, clearing it and discouraging further fermentation.
   - Simple: To move wine or beer away from the thick layer at the bottom, so it becomes clear.
   - _Winemakers often rack the wine several times during its first year in barrel._
   - _Once fermentation slowed, the brewer racked the beer off the yeast into a second vessel._
15. To load a round by hand from the magazine or belt into the firing position of an automatic or semiautomatic firearm, or to work a shotgun's slide to chamber the next round.
   - Simple: To pull back part of a gun by hand so a bullet moves into place, ready to fire.
   - _She racked a round into the chamber and checked that the safety was on._
   - _Instructors teach students to rack the slide firmly so the round seats properly._
19. To steal something, especially to shoplift goods from a store.
   - Simple: To steal something, especially from a shop.
   - _Somebody racked the tip jar while the barista's back was turned._
   - _He'd rack anything left unattended, from phone chargers to lunches in the office fridge._
20. To strike someone in the testicles. *(slang)*
   - Simple: To hit a man or boy in the testicles.
   - _The catcher got racked by a foul tip and stayed down for a full minute._
   - _A stray soccer ball can rack you before you even see it coming._

## Noun

21. Destruction, or the condition of something that has been wrecked and brought to ruin. *(obsolete)*
   - Simple: Destruction, or the state of being badly broken and ruined.
   - _Years of neglect had let the old mill go to rack and ruin._
   - _The town's slow slide into rack and ruin began the year the mine closed._

## Other meanings

- (noun) A climber's full set of gear for placing protection and setting up belays, such as slings, carabiners, and nuts.
- (noun) A friction device for rappelling, made of a frame holding five or more metal bars that the rope is threaded around.
- (verb) To subject a structure to shear, making different parts of it bend, lean, or shift in different directions.
- (verb) Of a horse, to go at a fast amble that rocks or sways the body.
- (noun) A fast amble, quicker than an ordinary ambling pace.
- (noun) Thin, broken clouds driven across the sky by the wind, or any mass of vapor floating overhead.
- (noun) A wooden block or frame fitted with several pulleys that guide a ship's running ropes.
- (noun) The stick that holds wool or flax ready to be spun by hand, also called a distaff.
- (noun) A geared winding device with a toothed bar, a small gear and a catch, used to draw back and cock a crossbow, also called a cranequin.
- (noun) Any of the bones in a horse's skeleton.
- (noun) A set equipped with a self-distributive binary operation in which, for any two elements a and b, exactly one element x combines with a to give b.
- (verb) To wash ore or metal on a sloping frame so that water carries off the lighter waste.
- (verb) To seize a pair of lines side by side by wrapping thin cord over and between them in a figure-eight pattern.
- (verb) To move or rush onward swiftly.
- (verb) Of clouds or mist, to drift quickly across the sky, driven by the wind.
- (noun) A rabbit not yet fully grown, or the pelt taken from one.
- (noun) Arrack, a strong spirit distilled in South and Southeast Asia from palm sap, rice or sugarcane.

## Origin

**Meanings 1–2, 4, 7–8, 10–11, 14, 16–18** — Middle Dutch rac, recke or rec (modern Dutch rek) gave Middle English rakke or rekke. Compare rekken.
**Meanings 3, 5–6, 12–13, 15, 19–20** — From Old English reċċan ("to stretch out, extend").
**Meaning 9** — From Middle English rakken.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/rack (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).