Meanings
plural wrenches in the works
- USSynonym of spanner in the works.
Such a big staff, with ludicrously little to do, inevitably began interfering with arrangements made by the army commanders. Its actual efforts at coordination were from the start so many wrenches in the works.
1989, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts, August 1914, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, →ISBN, page 72Synonyms: spanner in the works
Synonyms & antonyms
nounSynonym of spanner in the works.
Cite this entry
wrench in the works. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wrench%20in%20the%20works
“wrench in the works.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wrench%20in%20the%20works. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “wrench in the works,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/wrench%20in%20the%20works.
Source: wrench in the works on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.