rack

A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other.

Any of various kinds of frame for holding luggage or other objects on a vehicle or vessel.

A device, incorporating a ratchet, used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.historical

• Ay, but I fear you speak upon the rack, / Where men enforced do speak anything.
• During the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and was occasionally used under the plea of political necessity.

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

A bunk.especiallyslang

• Chief Stevens approached my rack and repeatedly ordered me to vacate my rack and report to the working party.
• By the time I had unpacked my sea bag, made my rack, and finished a good long hot shower, it was late in the evening.

Sleep.broadlyslanguncountable

• Do I have to do this now? Like, I really need to get some rack.

A distaff.

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.

• Holonym: rack and pinion

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.

A cranequin, a mechanism including a rack, pinion and pawl, providing both mechanical advantage and a ratchet, used to bend and cock a crossbow.

To place in or hang on a rack.

To torture (someone) on the rack.

• He was racked and miserably tormented.
• As the poet Sir Thomas Wyatt later recalled, his father, Henry VII's jewel-house keeper Henry Wyatt, had been racked on the orders of Richard III, who had sat there and watched.

To cause (someone) to suffer pain.

• Vaunting aloud but racked with deep despair.

To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.figuratively

• Try what my credit can in Venice do; / That shall be racked even to the uttermost.
• The landlords there most shamefully rack their tenants.

To alternately concatenate two words to magical effect.obsolete

• Foꝛ when we heare one racke the name of God,/Abiure the ſcriptures, and his Sauiour Chꝛiſt...

To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.

To strike in the testicles.slangtransitive

• Bike7125 raises a great point suggesting that cups could have been recommended "optional" equipment in school PE. I never got racked by a baseball or softball, but we did have a gym teacher, who insisted on a weekly session of a "cruelty sp

To shoplift (especially in a megastore), often by taking off of a rack.slang

• He racked three boxes of gum!

To take that which belongs to another, without regard of right or permission.broadly

To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.

To drive; move; go forward rapidly; stir.

To fly, as vapour or broken clouds.

Thin, flying, broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapour in the sky.uncountable

• The winds in the upper region, which move the clouds above, which we call the rack, […] pass without noise.
• And the night rack came rolling up.

To clarify, and thereby deter further fermentation of, beer, wine or cider by draining or siphoning it from the dregs.

• It is in common practice to draw wine or beer from the lees (which we call racking), whereby it will clarify much the sooner.
• The Darwin administrator, J.C. Archer, with great ceremony, turned on the flow to rack the precious golden stuff into casks.

To amble fast, causing a rocking or swaying motion of the body; to pace.

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

A fast amble.

A wreck; destruction.obsolete

• All goes to rack.

A young rabbit, or its skin.obsolete

• Now, sir, you would say a skin is a skin, we say it is a ' whole,' or a 'half,' or a 'quarter,' or a 'rack,' or a 'sucker. Suckers are skins of infant rabbits, and of little value. Eight racks are equal to one whole.
• The skin of a sucker is white, of a quarter, black and white striped, of a rack all black, and of a best all white.

Alternative form of arak.alt-ofalternativeuncountable

• 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.