Wrest
Pronunciation
- enPR: rĕst, IPA: /rɛst/
- Rhymes: -ɛst
- Homophones: rest
Origin
From Old English wræstan ("to twist, wrench"), from Proto-Germanic *wraistijaną (cf. Old Norse reista ("to bend, twist")), from a derivative of Proto-Indo-European *wreiḱ-. See also wry, writhe.
Full definition of wrest
Verb
- To pull or twist violently.
- To obtain by pulling or violent force.He wrested the remote control from my grasp and changed the channel.
- MiltonDid not she
Of Timna first betray me, and reveal
The secret wrested from me... - (figuratively) To seize.
- MacaulayThey instantly wrested the government out of the hands of Hastings.
- 1912: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 12There was one of the tribe of Tarzan who questioned his authority, and that was Terkoz, the son of Tublat, but he so feared the keen knife and the deadly arrows of his new lord that he confined the manifestation of his objections to petty disobediences and irritating mannerisms; Tarzan knew, however, that he but waited his opportunity to wrest the kingship from him by some sudden stroke of treachery, and so he was ever on his guard against surprise.
- (figuratively) To twist, pervert, distort.
- Bible, Exodus xxiii. 6Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor.
- Souththeir arts of wresting, corrupting, and false interpreting the holy text
- 1597, Shakespeare,And, I beseech you,Wrest once the law to your authority;To do a great right do a little wrong,And curb this cruel devil of his will.
- To tune with a wrest, or key.
Noun
wrest
(plural wrests)- The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.
- (obsolete) Active or motive power.
- (music) A key to tune a stringed instrument.
- Sir Walter ScottThe minstrel ... wore round his neck a silver chain, by which hung the wrest, or key, with which he tuned his harp.
- A partition in a water wheel by which the form of the buckets is determined.