Library / English Dictionary

WRECK

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A ship that has been destroyed at sea

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Hypernyms ("wreck" is a kind of...):

ship (a vessel that carries passengers or freight)

Derivation:

wreck (smash or break forcefully)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A serious accident (usually involving one or more vehicles)

Example:

they are still investigating the crash of the TWA plane

Synonyms:

crash; wreck

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("wreck" is a kind of...):

accident (an unfortunate mishap; especially one causing damage or injury)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wreck"):

prang (a crash involving a car or plane)

Sense 3

Meaning:

An accident that destroys a ship at sea

Synonyms:

shipwreck; wreck

Classified under:

Nouns denoting natural events

Hypernyms ("wreck" is a kind of...):

accident (an unfortunate mishap; especially one causing damage or injury)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "wreck"):

capsizing ((nautical) the event of a boat accidentally turning over in the water)

Derivation:

wreck (smash or break forcefully)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Something or someone that has suffered ruin or dilapidation

Example:

thanks to that quack I am a human wreck

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

Hypernyms ("wreck" is a kind of...):

declination; decline (a condition inferior to an earlier condition; a gradual falling off from a better state)

Derivation:

wreck (smash or break forcefully)

 II. (verb) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

Smash or break forcefully

Example:

The kid busted up the car

Synonyms:

bust up; wrack; wreck

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Hypernyms (to "wreck" is one way to...):

destroy; ruin (destroy completely; damage irreparably)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

wreck (a ship that has been destroyed at sea)

wreck (an accident that destroys a ship at sea)

wreck (something or someone that has suffered ruin or dilapidation)

wreckage (the remaining parts of something that has been wrecked)

wrecker (a truck equipped to hoist and pull wrecked cars (or to remove cars from no-parking zones))

wrecker (someone who commits sabotage or deliberately causes wrecks)

wrecker (someone who demolishes or dismantles buildings as a job)

wrecking (destruction achieved by causing something to be wrecked or ruined)

Credits

 Context examples: 

By no possible process of cruelty, starvation, or disease could this worn-out wreck be the still beautiful Lady Frances.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The wreck was located about 50 miles (80 km) south of Okinawa, Japan at a depth of over 1400 feet (about 430 meters), far from where the Navy's records initially predicted it would be.

(Lost 52 Project announces discovery of wrecked sub near Okinawa, Wikinews)

It was so with Elizabeth, still the same handsome Miss Elliot that she had begun to be thirteen years ago, and Sir Walter might be excused, therefore, in forgetting her age, or, at least, be deemed only half a fool, for thinking himself and Elizabeth as blooming as ever, amidst the wreck of the good looks of everybody else; for he could plainly see how old all the rest of his family and acquaintance were growing.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

He likened himself to a poet, wrecked on the shores of a strange land, filled with power of beauty, stumbling and stammering and vainly trying to sing in the rough, barbaric tongue of his brethren in the new land.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

I dare say that it has happened with you, sir, said my uncle at last, that you have lost some dear messmate, in battle or wreck, and that you have put him out of your mind in the routine of your daily life, until suddenly some word or some scene brings him back to your memory, and you find your sorrow as raw as upon the first day of your loss.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Up went the axe again, and again the panels crashed and the frame bounded; four times the blow fell; but the wood was tough and the fittings were of excellent workmanship; and it was not until the fifth, that the lock burst and the wreck of the door fell inwards on the carpet.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

At length he neared the wreck.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

All this, and more,—a whole world of chaos and wreck,—in possibly fifteen seconds I had seen and heard and grasped.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

But were he wrecked, the living water would engulf him, helpless; and he would indeed be lost.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Right before us, at the southern end, we saw the wreck of a ship in the last stages of dilapidation.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)