wrest

1
as in to pry
to draw out by force or with effort the boy wrested the book out of his sister's hands

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2
as in to extort
to get (as money) by the use of force or threats vowed that the bully had wrested his lunch money from him for the last time

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3
as in to earn
to get with great difficulty farmers who were used to wresting a living from the harsh land

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4
5
as in to grab
to separate or remove by forceful pulling wrested open the stuck door of the cabinet

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of wrest Soto's addition is the Mets' most aggressive move yet to wrest the Big Apple spotlight away from the Yankees. David K. Li, NBC News, 9 Dec. 2024 For the same reasons and the same strategies, China seems intent on wresting that title away from the U.S. Eli Amdur, Forbes, 8 Dec. 2024 Horowitz cultivates these credos in his clients, yet his usual practice is to wrest books from the grip of one, bestow them into the hands of another, then wrest them back for a third. Tad Friend, The New Yorker, 21 Oct. 2024 That, on paper, could wrest time from Hernández, who also was acquired to hit lefties but has struggled to do so for much of this season. Fabian Ardaya, The Athletic, 5 Aug. 2024 See all Example Sentences for wrest 
Recent Examples of Synonyms for wrest
Verb
  • Chiquita Brands said that it had been extorted by the paramilitary group and forced to make payments to protect its Colombian employees.
    Maria Abi-Habib, New York Times, 22 Jan. 2025
  • Jackson, whose prodigious feats as a Los Angeles Raiders running back and a Major League outfielder in the late 1980s and early ‘90s put him in the conversation as the best athlete, alleged that Thomas Lee Anderson and Erica M. Anderson harassed and tried to extort $20 million from him.
    Steve Henson, Los Angeles Times, 16 Jan. 2025
Verb
  • After a series of headline-making performances — including at Coachella and Gov Ball 2024 — the 14-track project earned a new peak of No. 2 on the Billboard 200.
    Rania Aniftos, Billboard, 17 Jan. 2025
  • Fastenal earned 46 cents per share on revenue of $1.82 billion, while analysts polled by FactSet were expecting 48 cents per share on $1.84 billion in revenue.
    Pia Singh, CNBC, 17 Jan. 2025
Verb
  • Brands began to pull together resources to support refugees.
    Stephan Rabimov, Forbes, 13 Feb. 2023
  • The 13-minute performance will likely call for a healthy dose of vibrant, colored lighting to pull it all together.
    Kelly Allen, House Beautiful, 10 Feb. 2023
Verb
  • In the hills of the Palisades, near the Temescal Ridge Trail, Alex Emerick, 34, his younger sister, Rainier, and their parents grabbed garden hoses at their home of 33 years.
    Laura J. Nelson, Los Angeles Times, 25 Jan. 2025
  • Junior forward Lawrence Sallis also grabbed 13 rebounds for the Royals.
    Paul Johnson, Chicago Tribune, 25 Jan. 2025
Verb
  • Miners work to extract coltan at a mine, near Rubaya, in DR Congo's North Kivu region, on April 12, 2023.
    Nimi Princewill, CNN, 28 Jan. 2025
  • That leaves the other two ways of extracting equity as reasonable options.
    Nerdwallet, Twin Cities, 27 Jan. 2025
Verb
  • Jair Bolsonaro’s Stay-Out-of-Jail Card: The former Brazilian president, squeezed by criminal investigations, is looking to Trump, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to shift his nation’s politics — and maybe keep him a free man.
    Ruth Maclean, New York Times, 23 Jan. 2025
  • Use a fire extinguisher by pulling the pin, aiming at the base of the fire, squeezing the lever slowly and sweeping the nozzle side to side For a grease fire, try to cover the flames with a lid or pan to snuff them out.
    Eleanor Nash, Kansas City Star, 23 Jan. 2025
Verb
  • Further details about the investigation were not included in the documents obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
    Angie DiMichele, Sun Sentinel, 17 Jan. 2025
  • Tribe President Anthony Reider said the executive committee and leadership council voted to remove the ban in a Tuesday letter obtained by the local newspaper, the Argus Leader.
    Ashleigh Fields, The Hill, 17 Jan. 2025
Verb
  • Electrons gently tug on protons in the lattice, drawing them inward to create an excess of positive charge.
    Charlie Wood, WIRED, 12 Jan. 2025
  • There’s an image of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was arrested in 2022 for not wearing her hijab to the Iranian morality police’s liking and died in custody under suspicious circumstances, tugging on the Grand Ayatollah’s beard with her hair free-flowing.
    Benjy Egel, Sacramento Bee, 9 Jan. 2025

Thesaurus Entries Near wrest

Cite this Entry

“Wrest.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wrest. Accessed 31 Jan. 2025.

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