vnreath 
With bruised arms and icreath9 of victory. 
Shak., Lucrece, L 110. 
[He] afterward attain'd 
The royal Scottish wreath, upholding it in state. 
Drayton, Polyolbion, v. 61. 
With wreaths of grace he crowns my conquering brows. 
Quarles, Emblems, v. 3. 
A lute she held ; and on her head was seen 
A wreath of roses red, and myrtles green. 
Dryden, Pal. and Arc, 1. 1128. 
Round the sufferer's temples bind 
Wreaths that endure affliction's heaviest shower. 
And do not shrink from sorrow's keenest wind. 
Wwdsii'orth. 
2. Inher.: (n) A garland or diadem for the head. 
(1) A chaplet of flowers or leaves, the general character be- 
ing described in the blazon. (2) A sort of twist or heavy 
cord composed of the chief color and the chief metal in 
the achievement. It is not often used as a bearing, but Is 
placed upon or above the helmet to receive the crest. It is 
Wreath, as worn at the end of the 14th century : the origin of the 
heraldic wreath borne under the crest and seeming to support it. 
(From Viollet-le-Duc's " Diet, du Mobilier fran^ais.") 
then shown edgewise, and resembles a short piece of stout 
rope, and should show three turns of the metal and three 
of the color, l)eginning at the dexter side with the metal. 
Such a wreath may also be borne on the head of a man or a 
woman. It is then represented in perspective as in nature. 
{!>) The tail of a wild boar: mentioned in the 
blazon only when of a different tincture from 
the rest of the bearing. — 3. Something resem- 
bling a twisted band ; something narrow, long, 
and circular, of slightly irregular outline. 
Clouds began 
To darken all the hill, and smoke to roll 
In dusky wreaths. Milton, P. L., vi. 58. 
As wreath of snow, on mountain-breast, 
Slides from the rock that gave it rest. 
Scott, h. of the L., vi. 27. 
A wreath of airy dancers hand-iii-hand 
Swung round the lighted lantern of the hall. 
Tennyson, Guinevere. 
4. A defect in glass, consisting of a wavy ap- 
pearance, due to want of uniform density. This 
defect is most common in flint-glass. — 5. The 
trochal disk of a rotifer with 
its fringe of cilia. See cuts un- 
der Hoiifcra and trochal Civic 
■wreath. See CTvic.— Purple ■wreath. 
See Pc^rcn.— St Peter's ■wreath. Same 
as Italian may (which see, under may*). 
— Wreath circular, in her., a wreath 
shown fully, not edgewise or in perspec- i, r-- i 
tive, forming, therefore, a complete cir- ^^'"a* <-ncular. 
cle. It is in this form that a wreath is generally shown 
when used as a bearing. 
wreath, r. See wreathe. 
■wreath-animalcule (reth'an-i-mal"kiil), h. An 
animalcule of the family Pcridiiiiidse. 
wreathe (reTii), v.; pret. and pp. toreathed (pp. 
also wreathen), ppr. wreathing. [Also wreath ; 
< ME. wrethen; < wreath, «.] I. trans. 1. To 
twist ; form by twisting. 
Of them the shepheard which hath charge in chief 
Is Triton, blowing loud his lereathed home. 
Spenser, Colin Clout, 1. 245. 
Two chains of pure gold ... of ureathen work. 
Ex. xxviii. 14. 
An adder 
Wreathed up in fatal folds. 
Shak., Venus and Adonis, 1. 879. 
And in the arm'd ship, with a wcW-n'reath'd cord, 
They straitly bound me. Chapman, Odyssey, xiv. 485. 
They killed a man which was a llr.st-borne, wreathing 
his head from his bodie, and embalming the same with 
salt and spices. I'urchas, Pilgrimage, p. 137. 
2t. To writhe ; contort ; distort. 
Then walks off melancholic, and stands wreathed. 
As he were ijiinied up Ut the arras, thus. 
B. Junson, Cynthia's Revels, iii. 2. 
Impatient of the wound, 
He rolls and wreathes his shining body round. 
fJay, Rural .Sports, i. 
3. To form into a wreath ; adjust as a wreath 
or circularly; cause to pass aV)ont something. 
6988 
About his neck 
A green and gilded snake had wreathed itself. 
Shak., As you Like it, iv. S. 109. 
Then he found a door 
And darkling felt the sculptured ornament 
That wreathen round it made it seem his own. 
Tennyson, Merlin and 'Vivien. 
4. To form or make by intertwining ; also, to 
twist together or intertwine ; combine, as sev- 
eral things into one, by twisting and intertwin- 
ing. 
From his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve 
Down dropp'd. MUtrni, P. L., ix. 892. 
5. To surroimd with a wreath or with anything 
twisted or twined; infold; twist, twine, or fold 
round. 
Each wreathed in the other's arms. 
Shak., Tit. And., il. 3.26. 
Dusk faces with white silken turbans wreathed. 
Milton, P. R., iv. 76. 
And with thy winding ivy wreathes her lance. 
Dryden, ^neid, vii. 549. 
Wreathed in smoke the ship stood out to sea. 
M. Arnold, Balder Dead, iii. 
6. To form or become a wreath about; encir- 
cle. 
In the riow'rs that wreathe the sparkling Bowl 
Eell Adders hiss. Prior, Solomon, ii. 
Wreathed column, in arch., a column so shaped as to 
present a twisted or spiral form. 
II. iiitrans. 1. To take the form of a wreath ; 
hence, to mingle or interlace, as two or more 
things with one another. 
A bow'r 
Of wreathing trees. 
Dryden, tr. of Virgil's Eclogues, ix. 85. 
2. In millinf/, to hug the eye of the millstone so 
closely as to retard or prevent its descent : said 
of flour or meal. 
■wreathen (re'THn), p. a. [< ME. wrethcn, var. 
of writhen, pp. of writhe: see writhcn. In pres- 
ent use xrrcathen is regarded as a poetical form 
for wreathed, pp. of wreathe, v.J Wreathed; 
twisted; specifically, in /icr., having many coils 
or circular curves, as a serpent when the body 
is coiled in different parts of its length. 
The hegge also . . . 
With sicamour was set and eglatere 
Wrethen in fere so wel and cunningly. 
Flower and Leaf, 1. 57. 
■wreather (re'THer), n. One who or that which 
wreathes, twists, or t^wines. 
Wreather of poppy buds and weeping willows ! 
Keats, Sleep and Poetry. 
■wreath-shell (reth'shel), Ji. Any member of the 
Turhinidfe, and especially of the genus Turbo. 
The species are numerous, and some of them highly or- 
namental when polished. See cuts under Turbo, Impera- 
tor, and operculum. 
■wreathy (re'thi), a. [< wreath + -yl.] 1. 
Twisted; curled; spiral. Sir T. Browne. — 2. 
Surrounded or decked with a wreath or with 
something resembling a wreath. 
Shake the wreathy spear. Dryden, ^neid, iv. 438. 
■wrecchet, wrecchedt. Middle English forms 
of wretch, wretched. 
■wrechet, "• See wrcaJ;'^. 
■wreck^ (rek), «. [< ME. wrak, wrel; wrec, < AS. 
wnec, expulsion, banishment, exile, misery (= 
D. tcrak; wreck, = Icel. rek (for j^rek), also reki, 
anything drifted or driven ashore, = Sw. rrak. 
refuse, trash, wreck, = Dan. vrar/, wreck), < 
wrecan = Icel. rcka, etc.. drive : see wreak'^, 
and cf . wrack'i, a doublet of jcrerf-l.] 1. The 
destruction, disorganization, disruption, or ruin 
of anything by force and violence; dilapida- 
tion: as, the ^oreck of a bridge; the wreck of 
one's fortunes. 
Hence grew the general wreck and massacre. 
Shak., 1 Hen. VI., i. 1. 135. 
The ureck of matter and the crush of worlds. 
Addison, Cato, v. 1. 
2. That which is in a state of wreck or ruin, 
or remains from the operation of any destroy- 
ing agency: as, the building is a mere wreck; 
he is but the wreck of his former self. 
But still the brave old soul held on, making the most 
of the wreck of life, now drifting alone to the Islands of 
the Blessed. Theodore Parker, Historic Americans, vi. 
Naught remains the saddening tale to tell, 
Save home's last urecks ^the cellar and the well ! 
0. W. Holmes, Island Ruin. 
3. The jiai'tial or total destruction of a vessel 
at sea or in ajiy navigable water, by any acci- 
dent of navigation or by the force of the ele- 
ments; sliipwreck. 
do, go, begone, to save your ship from wreck. 
Which cainiot perish, having thee on b<»ard. 
Shak, T. G. of V., i. 1. 156. 
'Wrecker 
4. A vessel ruined by wreck; the hulk and 
spars, more or less dismembered and shattered, 
of a vessel oast away or completely disabled by 
breaching, staving, or otherwise breaking. 
In the statute of Westminster the first (3 Edw. I,, c. 4), 
the time of limitation of claims given by the charter of 
Henry II. is extended to a year and a day, . . . and it 
enacts that, if a man. a dog, or a cat escape alive, the vessel 
shall not be adjudged a wreck. Blackstone, Com., I. viil. 
5. That which is cast ashore by the sea; ship- 
wrecked property, whether a part of the ship 
or of the cargo ; wreckage ; in old Eng. common 
law, derelict of the sea cast upon land within 
the body of a country, and not in the posses- 
sion of the owner or his agents. Wreck, or more 
fully wreck of the sea, was at common law applied only to 
wrecked property cast by the sea upon the land ; and this 
included things grounded — that is, not floating at the 
time of seizure, although in a position where the tide 
would float them again. All such property was originally 
the perquisite of the crown, or of its tenant the lord of 
the manor ; but in course of time an exception was made 
of wrecks from which any living thing escaped to land, 
in which case a presumption that an owner would appear 
arose and the property was preserved for a year and a 
day, after which if no claim was established the right of 
the crown was recognized. Wrecked matter floating was 
within the jurisdiction not of thecommon-law courts, but 
of admiralty, and known as derelict, or derelict of the sea. 
This too was a perciuisite of the crown, claimed under the 
name of a droit of admiralty. Such matter was classed as 
flotsam, jetsam, and lagan or liyan(yvh\ch see). In the Unit- 
ed States the right to derelict for which the owner does not 
appear is in the Federal government ; the right to wreck 
for which he does not appear is in the State to whose 
coast it comes, subject usually in either case to the right 
of the rescuer of it to a compensation known as salvage. 
6. Seaweeds cast ashore by storms; wrack. — 
Commissioners of ■wrecks (in* Maine, Massachusetts, 
and Rhode Island), receivers Of ■wrecks (in Great Brit- 
ain), "wreck-masters (in New York and Texas), oflicera 
whose duty it is to take charge of wrecked property on 
the part of the coast for which they are appointed, and 
preserve it for the owner, or, if unclaimed, for the state. 
— Wreck conunissioner, in Great Britain, one of a tri- 
bunal consisting of not more than three, appointed by the 
lord chancellor, under the Merchant Shipping Act, 1876 (39 
and 40 Vict., c. 80), for the purpose of investigating ship- 
ping casualties. 
■wreckl (rek), v.; pret. and pp. wrecked, ppr. 
irreckiny. [< irrcctl, n.] I. traw*. 1 . To cause 
the wreck of, as a vessel ; suffer to be ruined or 
destroyed in the course of navigation or man- 
agement : said specifically of the person under 
whose charge a vessel is at the time of its 
wreck, and usually implying blame, even in 
case of misfortune. 
Friends, this frail bark of ours, when sorely tried. 
May iireck itself without the pilot's guilt. 
Without the captain's knowledge. 
Tennyson, Aylmer's Field. 
2. To cause the downfall or overthrow of ; ruin ; 
shatter ; destroy ; bring into a disabled or ruin- 
ous condition by any means: as, to wreck a 
railroad-train or a bank; to wreck the fortunes 
of a family. 
Weak and envy'd, if they should conspire 
They wreck themselves, and he hath his desire. 
Daniel, Civil Wars, iii. 17. 
The meeting-houses of the Dissenters were everywhere 
wrecked. Lecky, Eng. in 18th Cent, t 
3. To involve in a wreck; imperil or damage 
by wreck: as, a wrecked sailor; wrecked cargo. 
Here I have a pilot's thumb, 
Wreck'd as homewaM he did come. 
Shak., Macbeth, i. 3. 29. 
The spurious tea men are also the buyers of wrecked tea 
— that is, of tea which has been part of the salvage of a 
lereeked vessel. 
Mayheu; London Labour and London Poor, II. 151. 
Like golden ripples hasting to the land 
To nreck their freight of sunshine on the strand. 
Lou'ell, Legend of Brittany, i. 33, 
II. intrans. To suffer wreck or i-nin. [Kare.] 
Rocks, whereon greatest men have oftest wreck'd. 
MUton, P. R., ii. 228. 
■wreck-t (rek), r. and n. An obsolete form of 
wrettk^ . 
■wreckage (rek'aj). «. [< wrcek^ + -age.'i 1. 
The act of wrecking, or the state of being 
wrecked. 
Wreckage and dissolution are the appointed issue. 
Carlyle, French Rev., II. v. 2. 
2. That which remains of or from a wreck of 
any kind ; wrecked material in general. 
Only a few years ago, the procession of the fat ox re- 
mained. ... a real piece of wreckage from vanished civ- 
ilizations. Pop. Sci. Mo., XXII. 247. 
Littered above the pavement with the icreckage and 
refuse of the market. W. Besant, Fifty Years Ago, p. 61. 
■wreck-chart (rek'chiirt), H. A chart showing 
the location and date of wrecks on any coast, 
as an aid in avoiding them or as a guide in 
searching for them. 
■wrecker (rek'or), n. [< wrcck^ + -crl.] 1. A 
person wlio purposely causes a wreck or wreck- 
