wreckage

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English

Etymology

From wreck +‎ -age.

Pronunciation

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Noun

wreckage (countable and uncountable, plural wreckages)

  1. Something wrecked, especially the remains or debris of something which has been severely damaged or destroyed.
    • 1962 October, “Talking of Trains: The collisions at Connington”, in Modern Railways, page 232:
      About three or four minutes later still an express freight on the up main line ran into the wreckage at about 35 m.p.h. Its engine also overturned and 15 more wagons were added to the mounting pile of wreckage.
    • 2022 January 12, Benedict le Vay, “The heroes of Soham...”, in RAIL, number 948, page 43:
      Typically for the 'get-on-with-it' era, the railway and military worked like demons to restore the vital rail link. The crater was rapidly filled in and the earth tamped solid, the wreckage was removed by breakdown trains, new rails and sleepers were rushed forward by willing hands, and US Army bulldozers piled in. By 2020 on the same day, both tracks were open for traffic again where there had been a gaping pit just hours before.
    • 2024, Jeremy B. Rudd, A Practical Guide to Macroeconomics, p. 2
      More recent attempts to salvage general equilibrium theory from the Sonnenschein-Mantel-Debreu wreckage have met with little success

Translations