rack
3
9.3
- noun
- /ræk/
- Archaic
- The war "left the Mother of States desolate, her people in despair, and rack and ruin stalking everywhere" (p. 403).
- rack and ruin
- go to rack and ruin
Examples
-
The Administration of Detroit is to blame for the vast ruin of the fine city; they lived high on the hog and thumbed their noses at the rack and ruin.
Blog text (27) -
The once-thriving factory now stands in rack and ruin, a reminder of its past glory.
-
This place is falling to rack and ruin.
-
Ellie knew it too, and Patty would learn it: how the body will go to rack and ruin; and so would Kevin, though for a while, in his late teens and twenties, he would forget.
Fiction book (1999) -
He was dreading his arrival, figuring his place must have gone to rack and ruin while he was gone and that his wife and children were probably in the poorhouse a long time ago.
Fiction book (1990) -
The old house fell into rack and ruin after years of neglect.
-
After the storm, the beautiful garden was left in rack and ruin.
Synonyms
1
8.9
Severe damage that makes something unusable
1
7.8
A state when something is very broken and falling apart
1
7.4
A building or place that has fallen into bad condition
Antonyms
Idioms
Compounds
- Specialized
2
6.0
A round gear and a flat bar with teeth that change turning into straight movement
- Specialized
1
8.1
A railway for steep hills where a gear on the train fits a central toothed rail to climb safely
- Archaic
1
9.0
A very high amount people must pay to live in a house or use land that is unfair
Surface Forms
Etymology
Rack in the phrase rack and ruin uses the same image of being pulled apart or badly damaged, like something that has been 'torn apart' or left in pieces. So rack here means great destruction or collapse.