“Racking My Brain” or “Wracking My Brain”?

Your brain! Your nerves! The torment! The destruction! Is it rack or wrack?! And how does wreck fit into all this?

Take a breath. In this article, everything will be explained, including:

• What’s the difference between rack and wrack?
• Is it racking my brain or wracking my brain?
• Is it nerve-racking or nerve-wracking?
• Is nerve-wrecking a word?
• Where do these phrases come from?

rack vs. wrack

The noun rack that we’re discussing here (as opposed to more common meanings, like the kind of rack for holding things) can mean “ruin or destruction.”

This rack is actually a variant of the earlier noun wrack, meaning the same thing. However, this noun sense of rack is rarely used anymore except in the phrase rack and ruin (which uses the redundant combination to emphasize destruction).

As a verb, rack can mean “to torture or torment” or “to strain.”

As a verb, wrack can mean “to wreck or destroy.”

Both racked with and wracked with are used to mean something like “strained or burdened with,” as in racked/wracked with debt and racked/wracked with grief.

Due to all of the intermingling senses involving pain and destruction, it’s easy to see why rack and wrack are sometimes confused. And, in fact, they are often used interchangeably in a few common phrases.

Is it racking my brain or wracking my brain?

When you’re trying to remember something, are you racking your brain or wracking it? It can be either, but racking my brain is often considered the more common or standard choice, which relates to how the expression originated.

In this phrase, the verb rack references the torture device called the rack, in which a person was bound to a frame that was slowly stretched. This grim origin is the analogy in racking my brain: you’re stretching and straining your brain to try to come up with the information. But wrack can mean “to wreck or destroy,” which also makes sense—as if you’re wrecking your brain due to thinking so hard.

Both rack my brain and wrack my brain are in common use, so if you’re trying to remember which one is correct, you don’t need to … well, you know.

How do a crevasse and crevice differ? Find out here.

Is it nerve-wracking or racking?

Nerve-racking is the more common version and is considered the standard one. But no need to fret about it: again, both racking and wracking are commonly used in the phrase.

As we mentioned earlier, rack as a verb can mean “to torture or torment,” so nerve-racking can imply that one’s nerves are being tortured or tormented. On the other hand, the phrase—regardless of which spelling is used—can imply that one’s nerves are being destroyed.

Which brings us to our next question.

What about nerve-wrecking?

In fact, the notion of one’s nerves being “wrecked” is used in similar expressions, as in Having two wild toddlers has really wrecked my nerves.

Though it makes sense, most people consider the phrase nerve-wrecking to be an incorrect version of nerve-wracking. Still, we use hyphenation to create unique phrases all the time, so it’s not really that it’s “incorrect” so much as that it’s not the standard phrase (which may make it confusing for someone reading it or hearing it, especially when they expect to hear the familiar phrase nerve-racking).

Examples of rack and wrack used in a sentence

Since they’re so similar, let’s look at some examples of how these two words are most commonly used in real-life sentences. Rack and wrack are commonly used interchangeably in all of these cases, except for rack and ruin.

• I’ve been racking my brain trying to remember where I put my passport.
• It’s utterly nerve-racking to lose your passport right before leaving for the airport.
• After being wracked with debt, they had to sell the farm, and the old barn fell into rack and ruin.