An engine of torture, used for extorting confessions from criminals or suspected persons. The rack is entirely unknown in free countries.

Torture; extreme pain; anguish. A fit of the stone puts a king to the rack and makes him as miserable as it does the meanest subject.

Any instrument for stretching or extending any thing; as a rack for bending a bow.

A grate on which bacon is laid.

A wooden frame of open work in which hay is laid for horses and cattle for feeding.

The frame of bones of an animal; a skeleton. We say, a rack of bones.

A frame of timber on a ship’s bowsprit.

The neck and spine of a fore quarter of veal or mutton.

Properly, vapor; hence, thin flying broken clouds, or any portion of floating vapor in the sky. The winds in the upper region, which move the clouds above, which we call the rack - . The great globe itself, yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, and, like this unsubstantial pageant, faded, leave not a rack behind. It is disputed however, whether rack in this passage should not be wreck.

Among the Tartars, a spirituous liquor made of mare’s milk which has become sour and is then distilled.

Properly, to steam; to rise, as vapor.

To fly, as vapor or broken clouds.

To torture; to stretch or strain on the rack or wheel; as, to rack a criminal or suspected person, to extort a confession of his guilt, or compel him to betray his accomplices.

To torment; to torture; to affect with extreme pain or anguish; as racked with deep despair.

To harass by exaction. The landlords there shamefully rack their tenants.

To stretch; to strain vehemently; to wrest; as, to rack and stretch Scripture; to rack invention. The wisest among the heathens racked their wits - .

To stretch; to extend.

To draw off from the lees; to draw off, as pure liquor from its sediment; as, to rack cider or wine; to rack off liquor.