5. An instrument, often a simple bar or lever with jaws or an angular orifice either at the end or between the ends, for exerting a twisting strain, as in turning bolts, nuts, screw taps, etc.; a screw key. Many wrenches have adjustable jaws for grasping nuts, etc., of different sizes.
6. (Mech.)
Defn: The system made up of a force and a couple of forces in a plane perpendicular to that force. Any number of forces acting at any points upon a rigid body may be compounded so as to be equivalent to a wrench. Carriage wrench, a wrench adapted for removing or tightening the nuts that confine the wheels on the axles, or for turning the other nuts or bolts of a carriage or wagon. — Monkey wrench. See under Monkey. — Wrench hammer, a wrench with the end shaped so as to admit of being used as a hammer.
WRENCH
Wrench, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Wrenched; p. pr. & vb. n. Wrenching.]
Etym: [OE. wrenchen, AS. wrencan to deceive, properly, to twist, from
wrenc guile, deceit, a twisting. Wrench, n.]
1. To pull with a twist; to wrest, twist, or force by violence.
Wrench his sword from him. Shak.
Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched With a woeful agony.
Coleridge.
2. To strain; to sprain; hence, to distort; to pervert. You wrenched your foot against a stone. Swift.
WREST
Wrest, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Wrested; p. pr. & vb. n. Wresting.] Etym:
[OE. wresten, AS. wr; akin to wr a twisted band, and wri to twist.
See Writhe.]
1. To turn; to twist; esp., to twist or extort by violence; to pull of force away by, or as if by, violent wringing or twisting. "The secret wrested from me." Milton. Our country's cause, That drew our swords, now secret wrests them from our hand. Addison. They instantly wrested the government out of the hands of Hastings. Macaulay.
2. To turn from truth; to twist from its natural or proper use or meaning by violence; to pervert; to distort. Wrest once the law to your authority. Shak. Thou shalt not wrest the judgment of thy poor. Ex. xxiii. 6. Their arts of wresting, corrupting, and false interpreting the holy text. South.
3. To tune with a wrest, or key. [Obs.]