storm-wracked

English

Alternative forms

• storm-racked

Etymology

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

storm-wracked (comparative more storm-wracked, superlative most storm-wracked)

1. Destroyed by a storm.
2. 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.

See also

• pain-racked