Word Direct Answers

wrench

wrench is defined in Webster's Unabridged Dictionary (1913) with 7 senses. The full text of each entry is reproduced verbatim below.

Definitions

  1. 1.A violent twist, or a pull with twisting. He wringeth them such a wrench. Skelton. The injurious effect upon biographic literature of all such wrenches to the truth, is diffused everywhere. De Quincey.
  2. 2.A sprain; an injury by twisting, as in a joint.
  3. 3.Means; contrivance. [Obs.] Bacon.
  4. 4.An instrument, often a simple bar or lever with jaws or an angular orifice either at the end or between the ends, for exerting a twisting strain, as in turning bolts, nuts, screw taps, etc.; a screw key. Many wrenches have adjustable jaws for grasping nuts, etc., of different sizes.
  5. 5.(Mech.) The system made up of a force and a couple of forces in a plane perpendicular to that force. Any number of forces acting at any points upon a rigid body may be compounded so as to be equivalent to a wrench. Carriage wrench, a wrench adapted for removing or tightening the nuts that confine the wheels on the axles, or for turning the other nuts or bolts of a carriage or wagon. -- Monkey wrench. See under Monkey. -- Wrench hammer, a wrench with the end shaped so as to admit of being used as a hammer.
  6. 6.To pull with a twist; to wrest, twist, or force by violence. Wrench his sword from him. Shak. Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched With a woeful agony. Coleridge.
  7. 7.To strain; to sprain; hence, to distort; to pervert. You wrenched your foot against a stone. Swift.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

Related questions

Reverse-dictionary questions

Definition-first questions whose answer is wrench.

Sources