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.
Games A triangular frame for arranging billiard or pool balls at the start of a game.
A receptacle for livestock feed.
A frame for holding bombs in an aircraft.
A state of intense anguish.
A cause of intense anguish.
Slang A bunk; a bed.
A toothed bar that meshes with a gearwheel, pinion, or other toothed machine part.
A state of intense anguish.
A cause of intense anguish.
An instrument of torture on which the victim's body was stretched.
A pair of antlers.
tr.v.
racked, rack·ing, racks
To place (billiard balls, for example) in a rack.
To cause great physical or mental suffering to: Pain racked his entire body. See Synonyms at afflict.
To torture by means of the rack.
Phrasal Verb(s): rack out Slang To go to sleep or get some sleep. rack up Informal To accumulate or score: rack up points.
Idiom(s):
on the rackUnder great stress.
[Middle English rakke, probably from Middle Dutch rec, framework; see reg- in Indo-European roots.] rack'er n.
(rāk) 