• IPA: /ɹæk/

From Middle English rakke, rekke, from Middle Dutch rac, recke, rec (Dutch rek), see rekken.

rack (plural racks)

1. A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other
2. Any of various kinds of frame for holding luggage or other objects on a vehicle or vessel.

   Synonyms: luggage rack

3. (historical) A device, incorporating a ratchet, used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act III, scene ii]:

     Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack, / Where men enforced do speak anything.

   • 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter 1, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC ↗:

     During the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity.

4. (nautical) A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes.

   Synonyms: rack block

5. (nautical, slang) A bunk.
6. (nautical, by extension, slang, uncountable) Sleep.
7. A distaff.
8. (mechanical engineering, rail) A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with those of a gearwheel, pinion, or worm, which is to drive or be driven by it.
9. (mechanical engineering) A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with a pawl as a ratchet allowing movement in one direction only, used for example in a handbrake or crossbow.
10. A cranequin, a mechanism including a rack, pinion and pawl, providing both mechanical advantage and a ratchet, used to bend and cock a crossbow.
11. A set of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).
12. A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs.

    I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher's yesterday.

13. (billiards, snooker) A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.
14. (gambling) A plastic tray used for holding and moving chips.
15. (slang, vulgar) A woman's breasts.

    Synonyms: Thesaurus:breasts

16. (climbing, caving) A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded.

    rappel rack

    abseil rack

17. (climbing, slang) A climber's set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, carabiners, nuts, Friends, etc.

    I used almost a full rack on the second pitch.

18. A grate on which bacon is laid.
19. (algebra) A set with a distributive binary operation whose result is unique.
20. (slang) A thousand, especially if proceeds of a crime.

• French: étagère
• German: Regal
• Italian: rastrelliera
• Portuguese: estante, armário, compartimentos
• Russian: этаже́рка
• Spanish: estante, repisa

• French: chevalet
• German: Streckbank
• Italian: eculeo
• Portuguese: cavalete, ecúleo
• Russian: ды́ба
• Spanish: potro

• Russian: ве́шалка
• Spanish: perchero

• French: carré

• French: balcon, devanture
• German: Holz vor der Hütte
• Portuguese: prateleira
• Russian: буфера́

From Old English reċċan.

rack (racks, present participle racking; simple past and past participle racked)

1. To place in or hang on a rack.
2. To torture (someone) on the rack.
   • 1563 March 30 (Gregorian calendar), John Foxe, Actes and Monuments of These Latter and Perillous Dayes, […], London: […] Iohn Day, […], →OCLC ↗:

     He was racked and miserably tormented.

3. To cause (someone) to suffer pain.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC ↗:

     Vaunting aloud but racked with deep despair.

4. (figurative) To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.
   • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act I, scene i]:

     Try what my credit can in Venice do; / That shall be racked even to the uttermost.

   • 1596 (date written; published 1633), Edmund Spenser, A Vewe of the Present State of Irelande […], Dublin: […] Societie of Stationers, […], →OCLC ↗; republished as A View of the State of Ireland […] (Ancient Irish Histories), Dublin: […] Society of Stationers, […] Hibernia Press, […] [b]y John Morrison, 1809, →OCLC ↗:

     The landlords there most shamefully rack their tenants.

   • 1645, Thomas Fuller, “Scripture Observations”, in Good Thoughts in Bad Times, […], Exeter, Devon: […] Thomas Hunt, →OCLC ↗, section I, page 69 ↗:

     Grant that I may never rack a Scripture Similie, beyond the true intent thereof.

5. (billiards, snooker, pool) To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.

   Synonyms: rack up

6. (slang, transitive) To strike in the testicles.
7. (firearms) To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.
8. (firearms) To move the slide bar on a shotgun in order to chamber the next round.
9. (mining) To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.
10. (nautical) To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.
11. (structural engineering) To tend to shear a structure (that is, force it to bend, lean, or move in different directions at different points).

    Synonyms: shear

    Post-and-lintel construction racks easily.

• Portuguese: alongar, estirar

From Middle English reken, from Old Norse reka

The noun is from Middle English rak, rakke, from Middle English rek, from the verb.

rack (racks, present participle racking; simple past and past participle racked)

1. To drive; move; go forward rapidly; stir.
2. To fly, as vapour or broken clouds.

rack (uncountable)

1. Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapour in the sky.
   • c. 1606–1607 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Anthonie and Cleopatra”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act IV, scene xiv]:

     Sometime we see a cloud that's dragonish ... That which is now a horse ... The rack dislimns, and makes it indistinct

From Middle English rakken.

rack (racks, present participle racking; simple past and past participle racked)

1. (brewing) To clarify, and thereby deter further fermentation of, beer, wine or cider by draining or siphoning it from the dregs.
   • 1627 (indicated as 1626), Francis [Bacon], “(please specify the page, or |century=I to X)”, in Sylua Syluarum: Or A Naturall Historie. In Ten Centuries. […], London: […] William Rawley […]; [p]rinted by J[ohn] H[aviland] for William Lee […], →OCLC ↗:

     It is in common practice to draw wine or beer from the lees (which we call racking), whereby it will clarify much the sooner.

• German: abstechen
• Spanish: desliar

See rack ("that which stretches"), or rock.

rack (racks, present participle racking; simple past and past participle racked)

1. (of a horse) To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace.
   • 1655, Thomas Fuller, The Church-history of Britain; […], London: […] Iohn Williams […], →OCLC ↗:

     The other two (only racking, no thorough-paced protestants) watched their opportunity to run away

rack (plural racks)

1. A fast amble.

See wreck.

rack (plural racks)

1. (obsolete) A wreck; destruction.
   • Error: invalid time (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “September 9th, 1665”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume V, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1895, →OCLC ↗:

     All goes to rack.

rack (plural racks)

1. (obsolete) A young rabbit, or its skin.

rack (uncountable)

1. Alternative form of arak
   • 1907, George Manville Fenn, Trapped by Malays: A Tale of Bayonet and Kris, page 347:

     If it was my officers wanted a stone jar of rack or a dozen of bottled ale, I might manage 'em, but I'm nowhere with sacks.

rack (uncountable)

1. (BDSM) Initialism of risk-aware consensual kink