shipwreck

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A ship that has sunk or run aground so that it is no longer seaworthy; a ruined vessel or its remains.

   “heaven will drive shipwrecks ashore to make us all rich”

   “Blackfishing from the beach. I've done my research. Hundreds of shipwrecks line the Jersey coast, and many of them are close enough to reach with a long cast on a dead-low tide. These wrecks hold tautog, porgies, sea bass, flounder.”

   “The shipwreck is the earliest examples yet found of a propeller-driven steamship on the Great Lakes.”

   “Marine archaeologists have discovered that two shipwrecks in Costa Rica are the remains of Danish slave ships missing for centuries — a finding that restores the ancestral lineage of an entire Costa Rican community more than 300 years after the vessels’ occupants reached its shores.”

2. (countable, uncountable)An event where a ship sinks or runs aground.

   “they made the coast of Cochin China, and the tempests, which rose at the same time, threatened them more than once with shipwreck”

   “But now, ten years later, after his recent shipwreck, he cannot compete as a runner, though he can outthrow the slighter Phaeacians with the heaviest discus.”

3. (countable, figuratively, uncountable)Destruction; disaster; failure; ruin; irretrievable loss.

   “Holding faith and a good conscience, which some having put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.”

   “It was upon an Indian bill that the late ministry had made shipwreck.”

   “Then you will have played your part and earned my gratitude completely. Five minutes, afterwards, if you insist upon an explanation, you will have understood that these arrangements are of capital importance; and that by the neglect of one of them, fantastic as they must appear, you might have charged your conscience with my death or the shipwreck of my reason.”

verb

1. To wreck a boat through a collision or other mishap.