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Wrest vs Yank - What's the difference?

wrest | yank |

As nouns the difference between wrest and yank

is that wrest is the act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion while yank is (us) a yankee, a northerner: someone from the northern united states, especially from new england.

As a verb wrest

is to pull or twist violently.

wrest

English

Verb

(en verb)
  • To pull or twist violently.
  • To obtain by pulling or violent force.
    • He wrested the remote control from my grasp and changed the channel.
  • * Milton
    • Did not she / Of Timna first betray me, and reveal / The secret wrested from me
  • (figuratively) To seize.
  • * Macaulay
    • They instantly wrested the government out of the hands of Hastings.
  • * 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 12
    • There was one of the tribe of Tarzan who questioned his authority, and that was Terkoz, the son of Tublat, but he so feared the keen knife and the deadly arrows of his new lord that he confined the manifestation of his objections to petty disobediences and irritating mannerisms; Tarzan knew, however, that he but waited his opportunity to wrest the kingship from him by some sudden stroke of treachery, and so he was ever on his guard against surprise.
  • (figuratively) To twist, pervert, distort.
  • * Bible, Exodus xxiii. 6
    • Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor.
  • * South
    • their arts of wresting , corrupting, and false interpreting the holy text
  • * 1597 , Shakespeare,
    • And, I beseech you,
    Wrest once the law to your authority;
    To do a great right do a little wrong,
    And curb this cruel devil of his will.
  • To tune with a wrest, or key.

    • Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.
    • (Hooker)
  • (obsolete) Active or motive power.
    • (Spenser)
  • (music) A key to tune a stringed instrument.
  • * Sir Walter Scott
    • The minstrel wore round his neck a silver chain, by which hung the wrest , or key, with which he tuned his harp.
  • A partition in a water wheel by which the form of the buckets is determined.

    • Derived terms

    * wrest pin * wrest plank (Webster 1913)

    Anagrams

    *

    yank

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A sudden, vigorous pull (sometimes defined as mass times jerk, or rate of change of force).

    • Synonyms

    * jerk, tug

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To pull something with a quick, strong action.
  • to remove from circulation
    • They yanked the product as soon as they learned it was unsafe.

    Synonyms

    * (pull with a quick strong action) jerk, tug * (remove from circulation) pull, recall

    References

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