wrack

> rack and wrack
rack and wrack are liable to be confused. Rack refers to "a framework for storing and displaying things", as in "a luggage rack" and "a vegetable rack". It is also the name given historically to an instrument of torture, consisting of a frame on which a person lay with wrists and ankles tied and had their arms stretched in one direction and their legs in the other, as in "prisoners on the rack". The verb rack means "to cause to suffer pain or great distress to", as in "cancer patients racked with agony", "racked with uncertainty" and "nerve-racking". The phrase "rack one's brains" means "to try hard to think of or remember", as in "racking his brains to remember their address". Wrack is a rarer word that refers to "a kind of seaweed" or "a remnant of something that has been destroyed". Rack and wrack are interchangeable in the phrase rack/wrack and ruin-"neglect, decay, destruction", as in "Since the owner has been ill the business has gone to rack/wrack and ruin".