Word Direct Answers

What does "wrest" mean?

Wrest: To turn from truth; to twist from its natural or proper use or meaning by violence; to pervert; to distort. Wrest once the law to your authority. Shak. Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor. Ex. xxiii.

Additional senses

  1. 2.Their arts of wresting, corrupting, and false interpreting the holy text. South.
  2. 3.To tune with a wrest, or key. [Obs.]
  3. 4.The act of wresting; a wrench; a violent twist; hence, distortion; perversion. Hooker.
  4. 5.Active or moving power. [Obs.] Spenser.
  5. 6.A key to tune a stringed instrument of music. The minstrel . . . wore round his neck a silver chain, by which hung the wrest, or key, with which he tuned his harp. Sir W. Scott.
  6. 7.A partition in a water wheel, by which the form of the buckets is determined. Wrest pin (Piano Manuf.), one of the pins around which the ends of the wires are wound in a piano. Knight. -- Wrest plank (Piano Manuf.), the part in which the wrest pins are inserted.

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