strack

See also: Strack and sträck

German

Etymology

From Middle High German strac (straight), from Old High German *strac (attested in framstrac), from Proto-Germanic *strakkaz (straight), from Proto-Indo-European *streg-, *treg- (stiff, rigid). Cognate with Dutch strak. More at stretch.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ʃtʁak/
  • Audio (Germany (Berlin)):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ak

Adjective

strack (strong nominative masculine singular stracker, comparative stracker, superlative am stracksten)

  1. (archaic or dialectal) straight, taut
    Synonyms: steif, straff, stramm
  2. (colloquial) drunk

Usage notes

  • Now chiefly used in the figurative sense “drunk” or in the adverbial form stracks (directly). The literal sense is quite rare but still widely understood. It is commonest referring to people’s posture, chiefly with the verbs liegen, sitzen, stehen, sometimes also in the combination strack und steif.

Declension

Derived terms

Further reading

Scots

Etymology 1

Uncertain. Perhaps a variant of strick, or from Old English stræc (strict).

Adjective

strack (comparative mair strack, superlative maist strack)

  1. strict

Etymology 2

Verb

strack

  1. struck
    • 1874, The Jacobite Relics of Scotland, page 164:
      It strack the righteous to the ground, / And lifted the destroyer hie.
      (please add an English translation of this quotation)