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Wreck vs Debris - What's the difference?

wreck | debris |

As nouns the difference between wreck and debris

is that wreck is something or someone that has been ruined while debris is rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed.

As a verb wreck

is to destroy violently; to cause severe damage to something, to a point where it no longer works, or is useless.

wreck

English

Noun

(en noun)
  • Something or someone that has been ruined.
  • He was an emotional wreck after the death of his wife.
  • The remains of something that has been severely damaged or worn down.
  • * Cowper
  • To the fair haven of my native home, / The wreck of what I was, fatigued I come.
  • An event in which something is damaged through collision.
  • * Addison
  • the wreck of matter and the crush of worlds
  • * Spenser
  • Hard and obstinate / As is a rock amidst the raging floods, / 'Gainst which a ship, of succour desolate, / Doth suffer wreck , both of herself and goods.
  • * J. R. Green
  • Its intellectual life was thus able to go on amidst the wreck of its political life.
  • (legal) Goods, etc. cast ashore by the sea after a shipwreck.
  • (Bouvier)

    Synonyms

    * crash * ruins

    Derived terms

    * shipwreck

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To destroy violently; to cause severe damage to something, to a point where it no longer works, or is useless.
  • He wrecked the car in a collision.
    That adulterous hussy wrecked my marriage!
  • * Shakespeare
  • Supposing that they saw the king's ship wrecked .
  • To ruin or dilapidate.
  • (Australia) To dismantle wrecked vehicles or other objects, to reclaim any useful parts.
  • To involve in a wreck; hence, to cause to suffer ruin; to balk of success, and bring disaster on.
  • * Daniel
  • Weak and envied, if they should conspire, / They wreck themselves.

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Antonyms

    * build * construct * make * produce

    Derived terms

    * bewreck * wrecker * wreckage

    References

    debris

    English

    Alternative forms

    *

    Noun

    (-)
  • Rubble, wreckage, scattered remains of something destroyed.
  • * {{quote-news, year=2012, date=December 21, author=David M. Halbfinger, Charles V. Bagli and Sarah Maslin Nir, title=On Ravaged Coastline, It’s Rebuild Deliberately vs. Rebuild Now, work=New York Times citation
  • , passage=His neighbors were still ripping out debris . But Mr. Ryan, a retired bricklayer who built his house by hand 30 years ago only to lose most of it to Hurricane Sandy, was already hard at work rebuilding. }}
  • Litter and discarded refuse.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=[The researchers] noticed many of their pieces of [plastic marine] debris sported surface pits around two microns across. Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria, […].}}
  • The ruins of a broken-down structure
  • (geology) Large rock fragments left by a melting glacier etc.
  • Anagrams

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