wrest

To pull or twist violently.

To obtain by pulling or violent force.

He wrested the remote control from my grasp and changed the channel.

[D]id not ſhe / Of Timna [Delilah] firſt betray me, and reveal / The ſecret wreſted from me in her highth / Of Nuptial Love proteſt, carrying it ſtrait / To them who had corrupted her, my Spies, / And Rivals?

To seize.

[S]he was one of your ſoft ſpoken, canting, whining hypocrites, who with a truly jeſuitical art, could wreſt evil out of the moſt inoffenſive thought, word, look or action; [...]

But the arrival of the new members of council from England, naturally had the effect of uniting the old servants of the [East India] Company. [John] Clavering, [George Henry] Monson, and [Philip] Francis formed the majority. They instantly wrested the government out of the hands of [Warren] Hastings; [...]

To distort, to pervert, to twist.

And I beſeech you / Wreſt once the Law to your authority, / To do a great right, do a little wrong, / And curbe this cruell deuill of his will.

Thou ſhalt not wreſt the iudgement of thy poore in his cauſe.

To tune with a wrest, or key.

The Harpe. A harpe geueth ſounde as it is ſette / The harper may wreſt it vntunablye

The act of wresting; a wrench or twist; distortion.

Whereas therefore it is concluded out of theſe ſo weak Premiſſes, that the retaining of divers things in the Church of England, which other Reformed Churches have caſt out, muſt needs argue that we do not well, unleſs we can ſhew that they have done ill; what needed this wreſt to draw out from on an accuſation of forein Churches?

A key to tune a stringed instrument.

The Harpe. […] A harper with his wreſt maye tune the harpe wrong / Mys tunying of an Inſtrument ſhal hurt a true ſonge

The Minstrel […] wore round his neck a silver chain, by which hung the wrest, or key, with which he tuned his harp.

Active or motive power.

Adowne he keſt it with ſo puiſſant wreſt, / That backe againe it did alofte rebowned, / And gaue againſt his mother earth a gronefull ſownd.

Ellipsis of saw wrest (“a hand tool for setting the teeth of a saw, determining the width of the kerf”); a saw set.

A partition in a water wheel by which the form of the buckets is determined.

Fig. 6 is the outline of a wheel having 40 buckets. […] The partitions, which determine the form of the buckets, conſiſt of three different planes or boards AB, BC, CD, which are variouſly named by different artiſts. We have heard them named the Start or Shoulder, the Arm, and the Wrest (probably for wriſt, on account of a reſemblance of the whole line to a human arm); […]