Wrick

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A painful muscular spasm in the neck or back
  2. 2
    a painful muscle spasm especially in the neck or back (‘rick’ and ‘wrick’ are British) wordnet
Verb
  1. 1
    To twist; turn dialectal
  2. 2
    twist suddenly so as to sprain wordnet
  3. 3
    To wrench; strain dialectal

Synonyms

All synonyms
crickcrickcontortdistortkinkrick

Etymology

From Middle English wricken, probably from Middle Dutch wricken (Modern Dutch wrikken (“to wriggle”)) or Middle Low German wricken (“to move jerkily; sprain”), from Proto-Germanic *wrigōną (“to wriggle”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreyḱ- (“to turn, wrap, tie”), from *wer- (“to turn, bend”). See also Low German wriggen, German Low German wricken (“to row; scull; move back and forth”)). Compare also Danish vrikke (“to move; turn; wriggle”), Swedish vricka (“to sprain; twist; scull”).

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.