rack

A typically public place where one goes to find potential sexual partners. Primarily heard in US. Our student bar is the college's meat rack on the weekends. It seems like everyone I know has hooked up with at least one person there. Everyone knows that the clubs on Leeson Street are just meat racks for single people.

Get out of here; go away; get lost. Primarily heard in Australia. Listen, I don't want to buy any, so why don't you just rack off and leave me alone! Rack off, Jerry! I'm sick of your foolishness.

to become ruined. (The words rack and wrack mean "wreckage" and are found only in this expression.) That lovely old house on the corner is going to go to rack and ruin. My lawn is going to wrack and ruin.

Fig. to try very hard to think of something. I racked my brains all afternoon, but couldn't remember where I put the book. Don't waste any more time racking your brain. Go borrow the book from the library.

Sl. to go to bed and to sleep. I'm really tired. I've got to go rack out for a while. I racked out until nearly noon.

suffering from severe pain. My body was racked with pain, and I nearly passed out. My head was racked with pain.

to try very hard to remember or think of something She racked her brains for a subject they could discuss without an argument.

anxious, often because you are waiting for something or because people are asking you difficult questions You're left on the rack for three days waiting for the results from the hospital. Here was a respected politician being put on the rack (= asked a lot of difficult questions) by aggressive junior politicians.

to think very hard, usually in order to remember something or to find a solution to a problem I've been racking my brains but I still can't remember who wrote that play.

if a building goes to rack and ruin, its condition becomes very bad because no one is taking care of it She's let that house go to rack and ruin since Clive died.

Ready-made, as in She has all her clothes made; she never buys a dress off the rack. The rack here is a frame from which clothes are hung. [Mid-1900s] A British synonym is off the peg, similarly alluding to a knob from which clothes are hung and dating from the late 1800s. Also see off the shelf.

Under great stress, as in I was on the rack while I waited for the test results. This expression, alluding to a medieval instrument of torture to which the victim was fastened and stretched, has been used figuratively since the late 1500s. Shakespeare had it in The Merchant of Venice (3:2): "Let me choose, for as I am I live upon the rack."

Also, go to wrack and ruin. Become decayed, decline or fall apart, as in After the founder's death the business went to rack and ruin. These expressions are emphatic redundancies, since rack and wrack (which are actually variants of the same word) mean "destruction" or "ruin." [Mid-1500s]

Also, cudgel one's brains. Strain to remember or find a solution, as in I've been racking my brain trying to recall where we put the key, or He's been cudgeling his brains all day over this problem. The first term, first recorded in 1583 as rack one's wit, alludes to the rack that is an instrument of torture, on which the victim's body was stretched until the joints were broken. The variant, from the same period, uses cudgel in the sense of "beat with a cudgel" (a short thick stick). Shakespeare used it in Hamlet (5:1): "Cudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not bend his pace with beating." Also see beat one's brains out.

Go to sleep, as in I racked out about midnight. This slangy expression, as well as the related rack time, for sleeping or snooze time, use rack to refer to being laid out on a framework, here a bed.

Accumulate or score, as in Last night's episode of that new sitcom racked up at least fifteen points in the ratings. [Colloquial; mid-1900s]

To think long and hard: I racked my brain for hours trying to recall her name.

Ready-made. Used of clothing.

Under great stress.

To try hard to remember or think of something.

Completely destroyed. “Rack” is a variant of “wrack,” meaning “wreck.” Accordingly, something (or someone) that has gone to rack and ruin is totally devastated.