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wrest

verb
/ɹɛst/

Etymology

From Middle English wresten, wrasten, wræsten, from Old English wrǣstan (“to twist forcibly, wrench”), from Proto-Germanic *wraistijaną, (compare Proto-Germanic *wrīhaną (“to turn, wind; to cover, envelop”), *wrīþaną (“to weave, twist”), Old Norse reista (“to bend, twist”)), from a derivative of Proto-Indo-European *wreiḱ-, *wreyḱ- (“to bend, twist”), *wreyt- (“to bend”). See also writhe, wry. The noun is derived from the verb.

  1. derived from *wreiḱ-✻
  2. inherited from *wraistijaną✻
  3. inherited from wrǣstan — “to twist forcibly, wrench”
  4. inherited from wresten

Definitions

  1. To pull or twist violently.

  2. To obtain by pulling or violent force.

    • He wrested the remote control from my grasp and changed the channel.
    • [D]id not ſhe / Of Timna [Delilah] firſt betray me, and reveal / The ſecret wreſted from me in her highth / Of Nuptial Love proteſt, carrying it ſtrait / To them who had corrupted her, my Spies, / And Rivals?
    • Does the devil strive to keep Christ out of men's hearts, and to preserve his own influence over them, by the weapon of ignorance? Christ wrests it from him by letting in a stream of light.

  3. To seize.

    • [S]he was one of your ſoft ſpoken, canting, whining hypocrites, who with a truly jeſuitical art, could wreſt evil out of the moſt inoffenſive thought, word, look or action; [...]
  4. ›+ 8 more definitions

    1. To distort, to pervert, to twist.

      • And I beſeech you / Wreſt once the Law to your authority, / To do a great right, do a little wrong, / And curbe this cruell deuill of his will.
      • Thou ſhalt not wreſt the iudgement of thy poore in his cauſe.

    2. To tune with a wrest, or key.

      • The Harpe. A harpe geueth ſounde as it is ſette / The harper may wreſt it vntunablye

    3. The act of wresting

      The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.

    4. A key to tune a stringed instrument.

      • The Harpe. […] A harper with his wreſt maye tune the harpe wrong / Mys tunying of an Inſtrument ſhal hurt a true ſonge
      • The Minstrel […] wore round his neck a silver chain, by which hung the wrest, or key, with which he tuned his harp.

    5. Active or motive power.

      • Adowne he keſt it with ſo puiſſant wreſt, / That backe againe it did alofte rebowned, / And gaue againſt his mother earth a gronefull ſownd.

    6. Ellipsis of saw wrest (“a hand tool for setting the teeth of a saw, determining the width…

      Ellipsis of saw wrest (“a hand tool for setting the teeth of a saw, determining the width of the kerf”); a saw set.

    7. A partition in a water wheel by which the form of the buckets is determined.

    8. A metal (formerly wooden) piece of some ploughs attached under the mouldboard (the curved…

      A metal (formerly wooden) piece of some ploughs attached under the mouldboard (the curved blade that turns over the furrow) for clearing out the furrow; the mouldboard itself.

The neighborhood

Derived

outwrest, overwrest, wrester, saw wrest, wrest block, wrest-harrow, wrest pin, wrest plank

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for wrest. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA