wrench

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English wrenchen (“to twist, to make a quick turn”),^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English wrencan (“to twist, turn; to practise wiles”),^[5][6][2][7] from Proto-Germanic *wrankijaną.^[2][7] It corresponds to Old High German renchen and Middle High German renken, modern German renken (“to twist, wrench”).^[5][8][7][3] Klein and Partridge also relate it to ranc (“a sudden twisting”) and Rank (“intrigue, trick”), and to Old English wringan (“to twist”), the source of wring.^[9][10][2] Outside Germanic, Barnhart and Merriam-Webster compare Latin vergō (“to bend, incline”), Lithuanian rengtis (“to bend over heavily, twist oneself”) and a Sanskrit verb meaning "he bends, turns";^[7][3] Etymonline sets it under Proto-Indo-European *wreng- (“to turn”), a nasalized variant of *werg- (“to turn”), which Watkins derives from *wer- (“to turn, bend”).^[2][4] The OED, however, calls the relationship of the Germanic verbs obscure,^[5] and Hoad, the Shorter Oxford and the ODE call the verb of unknown origin.^[11][8][12] The old noun meaning a trick or wile is inherited from Middle English wrench, inherited from Old English wrenc (“a twisting; artifice, trick”),^{[5][13][2][9]} and Etymonline derives the modern noun from it;^[2] the OED, the Middle English Dictionary and Barnhart instead take the noun of the 15th century and later, "a twisting", as formed directly from the verb.^[5][13][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Intransitive, to make a quick twisting or turning motion: in the Old English Monasteriales Indicia,^[5] where a sign is made by twisting the hand as if to unlock a lock.^[6] Barnhart dates the Old English verb about 1050.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the verb could also mean to practise wiles or use tricks,^[6][5] and the noun wrenc meant a trick or artifice;^[5][9] that noun lasted into the 17th century,^[5] and Chaucer used it once for a trick.^[14] Weekley remarks that this figurative sense is recorded first in English, while the literal one shows up in German.^[15] The transitive sense, to twist or pull something with force, appears in the Ancrene Riwle of about 1225.^[5][7] From 1530, in Palsgrave, the verb meant to injure a limb by straining it, and the noun both a violent twist and a sprain;^[5][2][16] Johnson (1755) gave "a violent pull or twist" and "a sprain" for the noun.^[17] A wrench was a mechanical screw from 1552,^[5][16] and the verb meant to tighten something with such a device, or to tune a harp, from 1577.^[5] From 1603 the noun also meant a forced interpretation of words.^[5][16] Hunters used the verb from 1686 for a hare veering at less than a right angle,^[5][3] a sense still recorded in Northumberland dialect at the end of the 19th century.^[18] The tool with jaws for gripping a nut or bolt is recorded from 1794.^[5][2] The emotional senses came last: to distress greatly from 1798, in Coleridge's Ancyent Marinere,^[5] and a painful parting from 1855.^[5][8]

Timeline

• c. 1050 – Old English wrencan, to twist, turn.^[7][5]
• c. 1225 – to twist or pull something forcibly, in the Ancrene Riwle.^[5][7]
• 1297 – noun, trickery, deceit (obsolete by 1566).^[5][16]
• 1530 – to sprain; noun, a violent twist, a sprain.^[5][3]
• 1552 – a mechanical screw.^[5]
• 1577 – to tighten with a wrench; to tune a harp.^[5]
• 1603 – a forced or false interpretation.^[5]
• 1686 – in coursing, of a hare: to veer.^[5]
• 1794 – a tool with jaws for turning nuts and bolts.^[5][2]
• 1798 – to distress greatly.^[5]
• 1855 – a painful parting or separation.^[5]
• 1876 – in mathematical physics, a force combined with a couple.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. To twist or pull something suddenly and violently, especially so as to pull it free: He wrenched the gate off its rusty hinges.^[19][3][5]
2. To injure a joint or limb by twisting it; to sprain: She wrenched her knee on the stairs.^[19][3][5]
3. To cause great pain or distress to.^[19][5][8]
4. To distort words or a meaning from their proper sense.^[19][16]
5. To make a sudden, violent twisting motion.^[19][3][5]
6. Of a hunted hare, to veer round at less than a right angle.^[3][5]

Noun

1. A hand or power tool with fixed or adjustable jaws for gripping and turning nuts, bolts or pipes.^[4][12][5]
2. A sudden, violent twist or pull.^[4][19][5]
3. An injury caused by twisting; a sprain.^[4][19][5]
4. A painful parting, or the distress it causes: Selling the family farm was a real wrench.^[12][19][8]
5. A distortion of the original meaning of something.^[3][5]
6. (mechanics) A force combined with a couple acting in a plane perpendicular to it.^[12][8][5]
7. (obsolete, Old English–1632) A trick, wile or artifice.^[5][13][17]

Word family

• wrenchingly
• wrencher
• plench
• monkey-wrench
• outwrench
• pipe wrench
• socket wrench
• Stillson wrench

Related words

• wring
• wrinkle
• wrong
• wrangle

Usage notes

British dictionaries describe the tool as an adjustable spanner or a tool like a spanner.^[12][20]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
8. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
10. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
11. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ a b c d e Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ a b c d e Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
17. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
19. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
20. ^ The Chambers Dictionary (2014), 13th ed., Edinburgh: Chambers