Other forms: wrested, wresting, wrests
To wrest is to pull something away by force. Wrest the gun from him, wrest control, wrested away.
The force is against resistance, so you wrest a thing from somebody who is holding it. Wrest control is the commonest figurative use. Note wrestle, which is the same root, and the silent w that English keeps in wr- words.
1verbwrestTo pull something away by force.
“The robber tried to wrest the bag from her hands, but she held on.”
wrest is a forceful taking.
Old English wraestan means to twist forcibly. Wrestle and wrist come from the same twisting.
Proto-Indo-European
*wreiḱ-
Proto-Germanic
*wraistijaną
Old English
wrǣstan — to twist forcibly, wrench
Middle English
wresten
English, today
wrest
Built from
From Middle English wresten, wrasten, wræsten, from Old English wrǣstan (“to twist forcibly, wrench”), from Proto-Germanic wraistijaną, (compare Proto-Germanic wrīhaną (“to turn, wind; to cover, envelop”), wrīþaną (“to weave, twist”), Old Norse reista (“to bend, twist”)), from a derivative of Proto-Indo-European wreiḱ-, wreyḱ- (“to bend, twist”), wreyt- (“to bend”). See also writhe, wry. The noun is derived from the verb.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA