Word.ws English Dictionary

wrake

/ɹeɪk/

wrake noun: suffering which comes as a result of vengeance or retribution. Also the obsolete form of wrack.

Noun

wrake (plural wrakes)

  1. (obsolete) Suffering which comes as a result of vengeance or retribution.
  2. (obsolete) Wrecked state or condition; destruction, ruin.

Also used as

wrake is also the obsolete form of wrack.

Forms of wrake

Noun
pluralwrakes
Verb
third-person singular presentwrakes
present participlewraking
past participlewraked
pastwraked

Origin of wrake

From Middle English wrake (“vengeance, persecution, injury”), from Old English wracu (“revenge, persecution, misery, etc.”), from Proto-Germanic *wrakō, likely related to *wrēkō (“persecution, revenge, vengeance”). Cognate with Gothic 𐍅𐍂𐌰𐌺𐌰 (wraka, “persecution”), Middle Low German wrake and Middle Dutch wrake.

Variant of wrack, possibly influenced by Etymology 1.

Words that rhyme with wrake

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about wrake

What does wrake mean?
Wrake means suffering which comes as a result of vengeance or retribution.
What part of speech is wrake?
Wrake is a noun.
How do you pronounce wrake?
Wrake is pronounced /ɹeɪk/.
What is the plural of wrake?
The plural of wrake is wrakes.

Words near wrake in the dictionary

  1. wraith
  2. wraithlike
  3. wraithly
  4. wraiths
  5. wraithy
  6. wrake
  7. wrakes
  8. wramp
  9. wramped
  10. wramping
  11. wramps

Source and license

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