Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One that wrecks or destroys.
  • noun One who is in the business of demolishing old buildings.
  • noun One who dismantles cars for salvage.
  • noun A tow truck used to move disabled or wrecked vehicles.
  • noun One who lures a vessel to destruction, as by a display of lights on a rocky coastline, in order to plunder it.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One whose business it is to tear down buildings preparatory to the erection of new ones on their sites.
  • noun A person who purposely causes a wreck or wreck-age of any kind, or a person who commits depredation upon such wreckage.
  • noun One who causes the wreck or ruin of anything; one who lays snares or uses artful or dishonest means to cause physical, financial, or moral wreckage: as, a train wrecker (on a railroad); a bank- wrecker; the wrecker of another's character.
  • noun A person employed in recovering wrecked or disabled vessels, or cargo and other property from such vessels, on account of the owners, underwriters, or other persons legitimately concerned; also, a vessel employed in this service.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who causes a wreck, as by false lights, and the like.
  • noun One who searches fro, or works upon, the wrecks of vessels, etc. Specifically: (a) One who visits a wreck for the purpose of plunder. (b) One who is employed in saving property or lives from a wrecked vessel, or in saving the vessel.
  • noun A vessel employed by wreckers.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A person or company that dismantles old or wrecked vehicles or other items, to reclaim useful parts. (Australia)
  • noun One who breaks up situations, events - (home wrecker, marriage wrecker, party wrecker)
  • noun A tow truck.
  • noun A mooncusser.
  • noun In the Soviet Union, someone accused of the formal charge of wrecking, that is, undermining the state in intangible ways.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun someone who demolishes or dismantles buildings as a job
  • noun someone who commits sabotage or deliberately causes wrecks
  • noun a truck equipped to hoist and pull wrecked cars (or to remove cars from no-parking zones)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

derived from the verb to wreck - one who wrecks.

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Examples

  • During Stalin's reign the term wrecker and the crime of wrecking were concocted.

    The Great Disconnect 2009

  • She called a wrecker and had the car towed to a neighborhood garage, where two tires were replaced and a battery installed.

    Denver John Dunning 1980

  • Then I called a wrecker service and had Klaus’s Cadillac towed to a garage 110 miles away in Lake Charles, told a fertilizer company to spread a dump-truck-load of fresh cow manure on his lawn, informed the parish health office he had AIDS disease, ran an ad with his phone number in a newspaper for sexual degenerates.

    The Convict and Other Stories James Lee Burke 2010

  • Italo decided not to call a wrecker till he reached me, about an hour on a 90-degree day.

    Peter Gorman: Car Trouble Took My Daughter A Step Closer To The Real World Peter Gorman 2011

  • Italo decided not to call a wrecker till he reached me, about an hour on a 90-degree day.

    Peter Gorman: Car Trouble Took My Daughter A Step Closer To The Real World Peter Gorman 2011

  • The spilled cargo from the wreck (hence the name wrecker) is then seized as reparations for past injustice.

    Archive 2007-04-01 2007

  • Once we got confirmation the vehicle was stolen, we then called a wrecker company to tow the vehicle for impound.

    Confederacy of Silence Richard Rubin 2002

  • Once we got confirmation the vehicle was stolen, we then called a wrecker company to tow the vehicle for impound.

    Confederacy of Silence Richard Rubin 2002

  • Once we got confirmation the vehicle was stolen, we then called a wrecker company to tow the vehicle for impound.

    Confederacy of Silence Richard Rubin 2002

  • This place was called the wrecker's reef, and was covered at high water, but when the tide was low, Isabel and the others often went there to get shells.

    Isabel Leicester A Romance by Maude Alma Maude Alma

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