Word.ws English Dictionary

rack and ruin

rack and ruin noun: complete destruction.

Noun

rack and ruin (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic, proscribed) Complete destruction.
    • In the mean season the College shall goe to rack and ruin.1599, Thomas Fowler, The history of Corpus Christi College

Origin of rack and ruin

1599, variant of wrack and ruin.

Questions about rack and ruin

What does rack and ruin mean?
Rack and ruin means complete destruction.
What part of speech is rack and ruin?
Rack and ruin is a noun.

Words near rack and ruin in the dictionary

  1. Raciu
  2. racization
  3. rack
  4. rack and pinion
  5. rack and pinions
  6. rack and ruin
  7. rack and snail
  8. rack bar
  9. rack bars
  10. rack block
  11. rack blocks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: rack and ruin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-rack and ruin.ogg.

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