storm-wracked
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From earlier “wracked by storm”, in sense wrack (“destroy”). Later sense of “stormy” due to influence by and confusion with rack (“torture, suffer”); see usage notes for rack.
Adjective edit
storm-wracked (comparative more storm-wracked, superlative most storm-wracked)
- Destroyed by a storm.
- Stormy, beset by a storm.
- 1864 March 12, William Chambers, “Blamyre’s Chambers”, in Chambers’s Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, volume 41, number 11, page 171:
- I believe I eloquently spoke of him, when I proposed his health, as one ‘of those daring spirits, who, proudly turning their backs on an old and effete world, pushed forth over the unsociable and storm-wracked seas to seek a golden future in a region teeming with boundless possibilities and wealth, that need only a daring hand to lay it open to the sun.’
- 2001, Dana Gioia, Nosferatu: An Opera Libretto:
- I sailed a ship in a storm-wracked sea
And all were lost except for me.