rack [ME] The rack is first recorded as a device for stretching materials such as cloth on, which was adapted as a medieval instrument of torture. To rack someone was to torture them on this device, and from this we get rack your brains [L16th] to mean ‘to make a great effort to think of or remember something’. The rack [ME] that you stand things on is related, and was borrowed from Dutch, initially in the sense ‘manger’ [LME]. This is from Provençal arracar, from raca ‘stems and husks of grapes, dregs’. Another use of rack [L16th] represents yet another word. When something deteriorates through neglect we may say that it is going to rack and ruin. Rack here is a variant spelling of wrack, meaning ‘destruction’ and is related to *wreck.