Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Wrest

Wrest (rĕst), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Wrested; p. pr. & vb. n. Wresting.] [OE. wresten, AS. wrǣstan; akin to wrǣ a twisted band, and wrīðan to twist. See Writhe.]

1. To turn; to twist; esp., to twist or extort by violence; to pull of force away by, or as if by, violent wringing or twisting. "The secret wrested from me." Milton.

Our country's cause, That drew our swords, now secret wrests them from our hand. Addison.

They instantly wrested the government out of the hands of Hastings. Macaulay.

2. To turn from truth; to twist from its natural or proper use or meaning by violence; to pervert; to distort.

Wrest once the law to your authority. Shak.

Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor. Ex. xxiii. 6.

Their arts of wresting, corrupting, and false interpreting the holy text. South.

3. To tune with a wrest, or key. [Obs.]

Wrest, n. 1. The act of wresting; a wrench; a violent twist; hence, distortion; perversion. Hooker.

2. Active or moving power. [Obs.] Spenser.

3. A key to tune a stringed instrument of music.

The minstrel . . . wore round his neck a silver chain, by which hung the wrest, or key, with which he tuned his harp. Sir W. Scott.

4. A partition in a water wheel, by which the form of the buckets is determined.

Wrest pin (Piano Manuf.), one of the pins around which the ends of the wires are wound in a piano. Knight. — Wrest plank (Piano Manuf.), the part in which the wrest pins are inserted.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.