rack 1. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

rack¹

PRONUNCIATION:	rk
NOUN:	1a. A framework or stand in or on which to hold, hang, or display various articles: a trophy rack; a rack for baseball bats in the dugout; a drying rack for laundry. b. Games A triangular frame for arranging billiard or pool balls at the start of a game. c. A receptacle for livestock feed. d. A frame for holding bombs in an aircraft. 2. Slang A bunk; a bed. 3. A toothed bar that meshes with a gearwheel, pinion, or other toothed machine part. 4a. A state of intense anguish. b. A cause of intense anguish. 5. An instrument of torture on which the victim's body was stretched. 6. A pair of antlers.
TRANSITIVE VERB:	Inflected forms: racked, rack·ing, racks 1. To place (billiard balls, for example) in a rack. 2. To cause great physical or mental suffering to: Pain racked his entire body. See synonyms at afflict. 3. To torture by means of the rack.
PHRASAL VERBS:	rack out Slang To go to sleep or get some sleep. rack up Informal To accumulate or score: rack up points.
IDIOM:	on the rack Under great stress.
ETYMOLOGY:	Middle English rakke, probably from Middle Dutch rec, framework. See reg- in Appendix I.
OTHER FORMS:	racker —NOUN


The American Heritage^® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.