Meaning

• A series of one or more shelves, stacked one above the other

• Any of various kinds of frame for holding luggage or other objects on a vehicle or vessel.

• A device, incorporating a ratchet, used to torture victims by stretching them beyond their natural limits.

• A piece or frame of wood, having several sheaves, through which the running rigging passes.

• A bunk.

• (by extension) Sleep.

• A distaff.

• A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with those of a gearwheel, pinion#, or worm, which is to drive or be driven by it.

• A bar with teeth on its face or edge, to work with a pawl as a ratchet allowing movement in one direction only, used for example in a handbrake or crossbow.

• A cranequin, a mechanism including a rack, pinion and pawl, providing both mechanical advantage and a ratchet, used to bend and cock a crossbow.

• A set of antlers (as on deer, moose or elk).

• A cut of meat involving several adjacent ribs.

  "I bought a rack of lamb at the butcher's yesterday."

• A hollow triangle used for aligning the balls at the start of a game.

• A woman's breasts.

• A friction device for abseiling, consisting of a frame with five or more metal bars, around which the rope is threaded.

  "abseil rack"

• A climber's set of equipment for setting up protection and belays, consisting of runners, slings, carabiners, nuts, Friends, etc.

  "I used almost a full rack on the second pitch."

• A grate on which bacon is laid.

• That which is extorted; exaction.

• A set with a distributive binary operation whose result is unique.

• A thousand pounds (£1,000), especially such proceeds of crime

Meaning

• To place in or hang on a rack.

• To torture (someone) on the rack.

• To cause (someone) to suffer pain.

• To stretch or strain; to harass, or oppress by extortion.

• To put the balls into the triangular rack and set them in place on the table.

• To strike a male in the testicles.

• To (manually) load (a round of ammunition) from the magazine or belt into firing position in an automatic or semiautomatic firearm.

• To move the slide bar on a shotgun in order to chamber the next round.

• To wash (metals, ore, etc.) on a rack.

• To bind together, as two ropes, with cross turns of yarn, marline, etc.

• (structural engineering) Tending to shear a structure (that is, force it to move in different directions at different points).

  "Post-and-lintel construction racks easily."