rack

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In hardware lingo, a rack is a cabinet that holds server computers, and a node is shorthand for a server itself.

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Definitions (120)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (26)

  1. noun A framework or stand in or on which to hold, hang, or display various articles: a trophy rack; a rack for baseball bats in the dugout; a drying rack for laundry.
  2. noun Games A triangular frame for arranging billiard or pool balls at the start of a game.
  3. noun A receptacle for livestock feed.
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Examples (50)

  • So it was that I approached A Cappella Books in the funky Little Five Points district of Atlanta, where doorways are shaped like skeleton skulls and a whiff of something not quite legal wafts in the air.There on the rack was a book I had meant to read for a long time, "There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing up in the Other America," by Alex Kotlowitz.
  • He will soon discover that the rack was a superfluous invention; and that the whip, by those well skilled in the use of it, can be made to answer any purposes of torture. —  The White Slave; or, Memoirs of a Fugitive
  • Zep's bicycle has a rack welded to one side, and snugged into the rack is his peculiar translucent gray surfboard, with an irregular dark shape embedded within its center. —  Asimov'sSF,January2008
  • Not only in the Orient unfortunately,—even in Europe 200 years after Akbar's time tortures and the rack were applied at the behest of courts of law. —  Akbar, Emperor of India
  • I ask if the dozen or so weapons in the rack are the only ones in the colony. —  FSF,August2004
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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

shelve ·  cabinet ·  stack ·  box ·  tray ·  cupboard ·  bench ·  locker ·  hook ·  basket ·  rod ·  container

Used in the same contextWord Family

rack:   racks ·  racking ·  racked
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (19)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (5)

  1. Middle English rakke, probably from Middle Dutch rec, framework; see reg- in Indo-European roots.
  2. Origin unknown.
  3. Middle English rak, probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Swedish rak, wreckage.
  4. Middle English rakken, from Old Provençal arracar, from raca, stems and husks of grapes.
  5. Probably from rack1.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (14)

  1. Early modern English also wrack (by confusion with wrack); not found as a verb in Middle English or Anglo-Saxon, except the secondary forms Anglo-Saxon reccan, as below, and Middle English raxen, from Anglo-Saxon raxan, *racsan, stretch oneself (see rax); prob. from Middle Dutch racken, stretch, reach out, torture, rack, = German racken, stretch, torture; a collateral form of Anglo-Saxon reccan (preterit reahte), stretch out, also correct, direct, rule, guide, tell, etc. (later Middle English recchen, stretch, also tell: see retch and rack, reckon), = Old Saxon rekkian, stretch, = Middle Dutch recken, Dutch rekkcn = Middle Low German reken, stretch, = OHG, recchan, Middle High German recken, stretch, extend, = Icelandic rekja, stretch, trace (cf. rekkja, strain), = Danish række = Swedish racka, reach, hand, stretch, = Gothic (Moesogothic) *rakjan, in comp. uf-rakjan. stretch out; prob. = Latin reyere, rule, literally ‘stretch out,’ ‘make straight’ (in por-rigere, stretch forth, e-rigere, s traighten out, erect, etc.) (past participle rectus, s traight, = English right), = Gr. ὀρέγειν, stretch, = Lith, razau, razyti, stretch, = Sanskrit √ arj, stretch. Akin to rake, reach, extend, but prob. not to rake, nor to reach, with which, however, rack has been partly confused. The verb and especially the noun rack show great confusion and mixture of senses, and complete separation is difficult. In some senses the verb is from the noun.
  2. from ME, racke, a rack (for torture), rakke, a straight bar, a rack for hay, a framework, rekke, a bar, a framework above a manger, a bar, a rack (for torture), later rak, rack (as a roost, a frame for dishes, weapons, etc.); from Middle Dutch racke, Dutch rak, a rack, = Low German rakk, a shelf, = G. rack, a bar, rail, recke, a frame, trestle, rack for supporting things, dial, reck, scaffold, wooden horse; the literally sense being either (a) active, ‘that which stretches,’ as an appliance for bending a bow, a frame forstretching the limbs in torture (rack in this sense also involving the sense of ‘framework’ merely), or (6) passive, ‘that which is stretched,’ hence a straight bar (cf. Icelandic rakkr, rakr, straight, = Swedish rak, straight), a frame of bars (such as the grating above a manger), a framework used in torture (involving also the orig. active notion of ‘stretching’), a bar with teeth, a thing extorted, etc.; from the verb. Cf. German reckbank, a rack (means of torture), from recken, stretch, + bank, bench.
  3. from Middle English *rakke, from Anglo-Saxon hreacca, hrecca, hreca, the back of the head (Latin occiput; Sweet, Old English Texts, p. 549).
  4. Altered, to conform to rack, n., from Middle English reken (preterit rac), drive, move, tend, from Icelandic reka, drive, drift, toss, = Swedish vräka = Danish vrage, reject, drift, = Anglo-Saxon wrecan, drive, wreak, English wreak: see wreak. Cf. rack, n.
  5. from Middle English rac, rak, rakke, from Icelandic rek, drift, a thing drifted ashore, jetsam; cf. reki, drift, jetsam; from reka, drive, drift: see rack, v. Cf. rack = wrack, wreck.
  6. Another spelling of wrack: see wrack, n., and cf. rack, from the same ult. source.
  7. A variant of rake, a path, track: see rake.
  8. A dial. form for what would be reg. *retch, from ME, rccchen, racchen, rechen (preterit rahte, rehte, rauʒte), rule, from Anglo-Saxon reccan, direct, extend, reach forth, explain, say: see rack, and cf. retch and reckon.
  9. Perhaps a particular use of rack, v. By some supposed to be a variant of rock.
  10. from rack, v.
  11. A variant of rock, by confusion with rack. Cf. rack, a supposed variant of rock.
  12. apparently first in past participle racked, rackt; from Old French raquer, past participle raqué, in vin raqué, “small or corse wine, squeezed from the dregs of the grapes, already drained of all their best moisture” (Cotgrave); origin uncertain; according to Wedgwood, from Languedoc araca, rack, from raco, husks or dregs of grapes; according to Skeat, for orig. *rasqucr = Spanish Portuguese Provencal rascar, scratch; cf. Spanish Portuguese rasgar, tear apart: see rash.
  13. Partly by apheresis from arrack; cf. Sp, raque, arrack, Turkish raqi, a spirituous drink, from the same ult. source: see arrack.
  14. Origin obscure.
 

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