Word.ws English Dictionary

reck

/ɹɛk/

reck verb: to take account of (someone or something); to care for; to consider, to heed, to regard.

Verb

reck (third-person singular simple present recks, present participle recking, simple past and past participle recked or (obsolete) rought, raught)

  1. (archaic, transitive, intransitive (usually with of or for)) To take account of (someone or something); to care for; to consider, to heed, to regard.
    • Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, / Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, / Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, / Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, / And recks not his own rede.c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac...
    • […]with that care lost / went all his fear: of God, or hell, or worse / he recked not[…]1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
  2. (archaic, catenative) To want (to do something); to desire to, to be inclined to, to care to.
    • My master is of churlish disposition, / And little recks to find the way to heaven / By doing deeds of hospitality.c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
  3. (archaic, intransitive, with-of) To know about, to know of, to be aware of.
    • Little recked the busy multitude in that great smoky town of Blackingham of the solemn glories of the fading woods, with all their mellow brown and crimson foliage; little dreamed they of gorgeous sunsets, purple clouds, roseate mists, and lingering lovely-coloured lights in mountain passes; […]1866, Emma Jane Worboise, “Mr. Armstrong’s Will”, in Sir Julian’s Wife, London: Virtue Brothers and Co., […], →OCLC, page 1
  4. (obsolete, transitive) To reckon, to consider, to regard (someone or something) as.
  5. (ambitransitive, archaic, dialectal) To concern (someone); to be important or of interest to; to matter.
    • It recks not!
    • What recks it them?1637 (date written; published 1638), John Milton, “Lycidas”, in Poems of Mr. John Milton, […], London: […] Ruth Raworth for Humphrey Mosely, […], published 1646, →OCLC
  6. (dialectal, obsolete, reflexive) To concern oneself, to trouble oneself.

reck meaning in Urdu

reck in Urdu

خیال کرنا, توجہ دینا

Examples of reck in a sentence

  • The victim suffers, but she recks not of his grief.1835, William Gilmore Simms, The Partisan, Harper, Chapter XI, page 136:
  • Little recked he perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart sometimes, piercing to the core.1922 February 2, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC:

Forms of reck

third-person singular presentrecks
present participlerecking
past participlerecked
pastrecked
past participleraught
pastraught
alternative formreak
past participle (obsolete)rought
past (obsolete)rought

Origin of reck

From Middle English recken, rekken, reken, from Old Norse rœkja (compare Old English rēċċan, rēċan (“to care, reck, take care of, be interested in, care for, desire”); whence English retch), from Proto-Germanic *rōkijaną (“to care, take care”), from Proto-Indo-European *rēǵ-, *rēg- (“to care, help”). Cognate with obsolete Dutch roeken, Low German roken, ruken (“to reck, care”), German geruhen (“to deign, condescend”), Icelandic rækja (“to care, regard, discharge”), Danish røgte (“to care, tend”), Swedish rykta (“to groom”). See reckon.

Words formed from reck

Words that rhyme with reck

44 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about reck

What does reck mean?
Reck means to take account of (someone or something); to care for; to consider, to heed, to regard.
What is reck in Urdu?
Reck in Urdu is خیال کرنا, توجہ دینا. See Reck meaning in Urdu.
How do you use reck in a sentence?
The victim suffers, but she recks not of his grief.
What part of speech is reck?
Reck is a verb.
How do you pronounce reck?
Reck is pronounced /ɹɛk/.
What is the past tense of reck?
The past tense of reck is recked.

Words near reck in the dictionary

  1. recivilising
  2. recivilize
  3. recivilized
  4. recivilizes
  5. recivilizing
  6. reck
  7. reckan
  8. reckans
  9. recked
  10. recken
  11. reckened

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: reck (page history and authors); reck (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “reck.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/reck. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.