WREST

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does wrest mean? 

• WREST (verb)
  The verb WREST has 1 sense:

1. obtain by seizing forcibly or violently, also metaphorically

  Familiarity information: WREST used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• WREST (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they wrest    ... he / she / it wrests   
Past simple: wrested   
Past participle: wrested   
-ing form: wresting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Obtain by seizing forcibly or violently, also metaphorically

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Context example:

wrest power from the old government

Hypernyms (to "wrest" is one way to...):

seize (take or capture by force)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s something from somebody

Derivation:

wrester (someone who obtains something by pulling it violently with twisting movements)

 Context examples 

When I came here today, I thought that nothing could have wrested this confession from me.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

With a quick movement she wrested the bottle out of his hand and raised it up so that for a moment it entered my head that she was about to drink it off.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

These, in their turn, cursed back at the blind miscreant, threatened him in horrid terms, and tried in vain to catch the stick and wrest it from his grasp.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

The Abbot only sprang forward with shining eyes; but the chancellor and the master hung upon either arm and wrested him back out of danger's way.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

And you cleanse your eyes in a great brightness, and thrust your shoulders among the stars, doing what all life has done, letting the 'ape and tiger die' and wresting highest heritage from all powers that be.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“I have taken leave of you,” said I, wresting my hand away.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Looking round, there was the old dame down upon the roadway, with her red whimple flying on the breeze, while the two rogues, black and white, stooped over her, wresting away from her the penny and such other poor trifles as were worth the taking.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But if he heard the tap of his wife’s stick approaching him, his talk would break off at once into the garden and its prospects, for she was still haunted by the fear that he would some day go back to the ring, and she never missed the old man for an hour without being convinced that he had hobbled off to wrest the belt from the latest upstart champion.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)