Word.ws English Dictionary

shipwrack

shipwrack is the obsolete form of shipwreck.

Meaning of shipwreck

Noun

shipwreck (countable and uncountable, plural shipwrecks)

  1. A ship that has sunk or run aground so that it is no longer seaworthy; a ruined vessel or its remains.
    • heaven will drive shipwrecks ashore to make us all rich1670, John Dryden, William D'Avenant, The Tempest
  2. An event where a ship sinks or runs aground.
    • they made the coast of Cochin China, and the tempests, which rose at the same time, threatened them more than once with shipwreck1688, John Dryden, The Life of St Francis Xavier
  3. (figuratively) Destruction; disaster; failure; ruin; irretrievable loss.
    • Holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, 1 Timothy 1:19

See all 4 meanings of shipwreck

Forms of shipwrack

pluralshipwracks

Questions about shipwrack

What is shipwrack the obsolete form of?
Shipwrack is the obsolete form of shipwreck.

Words near shipwrack in the dictionary

  1. shipworker
  2. shipworkers
  3. shipworks
  4. shipworm
  5. shipworms
  6. shipwrack
  7. shipwracke
  8. shipwrackes
  9. shipwracks
  10. shipwreck
  11. shipwrecked

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: shipwrack (page history and authors); shipwreck (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.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “shipwrack.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shipwrack. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.