rack
/ɹæk/
Dictionary
noun
- 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.
- A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes.
- A bunk.
- (by extension) Sleep.
- 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.
- 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.
- A set of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).
- A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs.
"I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher's yesterday."
- A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.
- A woman's breasts.
- A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded.
"abseil rack"
- 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."
- A grate on which bacon is laid.
- That which is extorted; exaction.
- A set with a distributive binary operation whose result is unique.
- A thousand pounds (£1,000), especially such proceeds of crime
verb
- To place in or hang on a rack.
- To torture (someone) on the rack.
- To cause (someone) to suffer pain.
- To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.
- To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.
- To strike a male in the testicles.
- To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.
- To move the slide bar on a shotgun in order to chamber the next round.
- To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.
- To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.
- (structural engineering) Tending to shear a structure (that is, force it to move in different directions at different points).
"Post-and-lintel construction racks easily."
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