wrest
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To pull or twist violently.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
rehstIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɹɛst
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
transitive
To pull or twist violently.
transitive
To obtain by pulling or violent force.
transitivefiguratively
To distort, to pervert, to twist.
transitivefiguratively
To seize.
noun
The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.
A partition in a water wheel by which the form of the buckets is determined.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To pull or twist violently.
Used this way, wrest is a reasonably familiar word with a clearly unfavourable pull. It comes across as direct, sometimes bluntly so.
- Emotional tone
- Negative
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Gentle
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Blunt and forceful
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use wrest
- “Wrest the knife from his hands.”verb
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.