wrecker
/ˈrɛkə
/noun
1A person or thing that wrecks something: [in combination]: she was unfairly portrayed as a marriage wrecker...
- Two of the wreckers, aged only six and eight, were below the age of criminal responsibility but two others, aged 13 and 12, were charged with criminal damage and referred to Salford Youth Court.
- The thefts have led John McCormack, 74, an allotment holder from Canterbury Avenue, Little Horton, to call for fences to be put up to keep the wreckers at bay.
- The wreckers are thought to have struck late on Friday night and again on Saturday - ironically just around the corner from Ilkley Police Station.
1.1chiefly North American A person who breaks up damaged vehicles or demolishes old buildings to obtain usable spares or scrap.At the end of the day, have the wreckers remove the vehicles to a holding facility, where they are then collected after payment of the fines and wrecking fee....
- New South Wales is the only state where wreckers have to account from where they got their parts.
- There is the odd door way that the wreckers left standing, but the original shikumen houses were demolished to provide space to build.
2North American A recovery vehicle: they raced out with the wrecker when they heard there’d been an accident...
- Maneuvering a heavy, expanded-mobility tactical truck wrecker into position often was a challenge in the crowded streets of an urban environment.
- The armored box could be lifted by a 5-ton wrecker or a 10,000-pound forklift, so it could be moved from one vehicle to another in case the vehicle it was mounted on became not mission capable.
- In the event a fuel truck broke down, one of the empty fuel trucks could transfer the fuel, and a HEMTT or a 10-ton wrecker could then recover the broken fueller.
3chiefly historical A person on the shore who tries to bring about a shipwreck in order to plunder or profit from the wreckage.Quoyle learns about his ancestors, who were pirates and wreckers, gets a job as a reporter on the local rag and meets Wavey Prowse who teaches the children at the school....
- So many ships have foundered along this coast, driven onto its reefs by storms or lured there by wreckers ' lights, that pieces from Spanish galleons still wash up with the tide.
- This also allows her to examine those peculiarities of current and shoreline that make stretches of water like the Pentland Firth such rich pickings for local wreckers.
