Wiktionary

shipwreck

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English schipwrak, from Old English sċipwræc (“jetsam”), equivalent to ship +‎ wrack. Cognate with Scots schip-wrak (“to shipwreck”, verb), Dutch scheepswrak (“shipwreck”), German Schiffswrack (“shipwreck”), Swedish skeppsvrak (“shipwreck”), Danish skibsvrag (“shipwreck”). Modern form is due to influence from wreck.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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shipwreck (countable and uncountable, plural shipwrecks)

  1. A ship that has sunk or run aground so that it is no longer seaworthy; a ruined vessel or its remains.
    • 1670, John Dryden, William D'Avenant, The Tempest:
      heaven will drive shipwrecks ashore to make us all rich
    • 2014, Nick Honachefsky, The Jersey Surf Diaries:
      Blackfishing from the beach. I've done my research. Hundreds of shipwrecks line the Jersey coast, and many of them are close enough to reach with a long cast on a dead-low tide. These wrecks hold tautog, porgies, sea bass, flounder.
    • 2015 October 22, Michael Pearson, “153-year-old shipwreck found in Lake Ontario”, in CNN‎[1]:
      The shipwreck is the earliest examples yet found of a propeller-driven steamship on the Great Lakes.
    • 2025 May 2, Amarachi Orie, “Archaeologists discover true identity of Costa Rica shipwrecks long thought to be pirate ships”, in CNN‎[2]:
      Marine archaeologists have discovered that two shipwrecks in Costa Rica are the remains of Danish slave ships missing for centuries — a finding that restores the ancestral lineage of an entire Costa Rican community more than 300 years after the vessels’ occupants reached its shores.
  2. (countable, uncountable) An event where a ship sinks or runs aground.
    • 1688, John Dryden, The Life of St Francis Xavier:
      they made the coast of Cochin China, and the tempests, which rose at the same time, threatened them more than once with shipwreck
    • 2002, Eva Brann, Homeric Moments, page 48:
      But now, ten years later, after his recent shipwreck, he cannot compete as a runner, though he can outthrow the slighter Phaeacians with the heaviest discus.
  3. (figurative) Destruction; disaster; failure; ruin; irretrievable loss.

Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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shipwreck (third-person singular simple present shipwrecks, present participle shipwrecking, simple past and past participle shipwrecked)

  1. To wreck a boat through a collision or other mishap.

Translations

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See also

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