1 (often in compounds) a piece of equipment, usually made of metal or wooden bars, that is used for holding things or for hanging things on:
a vegetable / wine / plate / toast rack * I looked through a rack of clothes at the back of the shop. * Remove the cakes from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
seealsoLUGGAGERACK, ROOFRACK
2 (usually the rack) an instrument of TORTURE, used in the past for punishing and hurting people. Their arms and legs were tied to the wooden frame and then pulled in opposite directions, stretching the body:
to put sb on the rack
3 ~ of lamb / pork a particular piece of meat that includes the front RIBS and is cooked in the oven:
a rack of lamb
4 a part of a machine that consists of a bar with parts that a wheel or GEAR can fit into
IDIOMS
go to rack and ruin to get into a bad condition:
They let the house go to rack and ruin.
off the rack (AmE) = off the peg at PEGn.
on the rack feeling extreme pressure, anxiety or pain
verb (also less frequent wrack) [VN] [oftenpassive] to make sb suffer great physical or mental pain:
to be racked with / by guilt * Her face was racked with pain. * Violent sobs racked her whole body.
IDIOMS
rack your brain(s) (also less frequent wrack your brain)s() to think very hard or for a long time about sth:
She racked her brains, trying to remember exactly what she had said.
PHRASALVERBS
rack up sth (especially AmE) to collect sth, such as profits or losses in a business, or points in a competition:
The company racked up $200 million in losses in two years. * In ten years of boxing he racked up a record 176 wins.
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About this entry
This is a English–English dictionary entry.
Sourced from Main Dictionary in Lughet's collection.
This word also appears under other sources in Lughet's collection — see the list below.
This entry for rack is sourced from Main Dictionary, one of the dictionaries and corpora merged into Lughet.
Is rack a noun, verb, or something else?
In this entry, rack is tagged as noun.
Does rack appear elsewhere on Lughet?
Yes — rack appears under other sources or language pairs in Lughet's collection. See the list below.
What is Lughet?
Lughet is a free trilingual dictionary covering nearly five million entries across Uyghur, Chinese, and English, drawn from more than ten source dictionaries and corpora.
