wrest

Meanings

1. To pull or twist violently.
2. To obtain by pulling or violent force.
3. To seize.
4. To distort, to pervert, to twist.
5. To tune with a wrest, or key.

1. The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.
2. A key to tune a stringed instrument.
3. Active or motive power.
4. Ellipsis of saw wrest (“a hand tool for setting the teeth of a saw, determining the width of the kerf”); a saw set.

1. A partition in a water wheel by which the form of the buckets is determined.

1. A metal (formerly wooden) piece of some ploughs attached under the mouldboard (the curved blade that turns over the furrow) for clearing out the furrow; the mouldboard itself.

Etymology

From Middle English wresten, wrasten, wræsten, from Old English wrǣstan (“to twist forcibly, wrench”), from Proto-Germanic *wraistijaną, (compare Proto-Germanic *wrīhaną (“to turn, wind; to cover, envelop”), *wrīþaną (“to weave, twist”), Old Norse reista (“to bend, twist”)), from a derivative of Proto-Indo-European *wreiḱ-, *wreyḱ- (“to bend, twist”), *wreyt- (“to bend”). See also writhe, wry. The noun is derived from the verb.