reek

/riːk/

reek noun: a strong unpleasant smell.

Noun (1)

reek (countable and uncountable, plural reeks)

A strong unpleasant smell.
(Scotland) Vapour; steam; smoke; fume.
- Thou mightst as well say, I loue to walke by the
  Counter-gate, which is as hatefull to me, as the reeke of
  a Lime-kill.c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
- Now, by this time, the sun begins to leam,
  And lit the hill-heads with his morning beam;
  And birds, and beasts, and folk to be a-steer,
  And clouds o’ reek frae lum heads to appear.1768, Alexander Ross (poet), "Helenore; or, the fortunate Shepherdess": a Poem in the Broad Scoth Dialect

Verb

reek (third-person singular simple present reeks, present participle reeking, simple past and past participle reeked)

(intransitive) To have or give off a strong, unpleasant smell.
- You reek of perfume.
- Your fridge reeks of egg.
(figuratively, intransitive) To be evidently associated with something unpleasant.
- The boss appointing his nephew as a director reeks of nepotism.
Synonyms:

smack
(archaic, intransitive) To be emitted or exhaled, emanate, as of vapour or perfume.
(archaic, intransitive) To emit smoke or vapour; to steam.
- […] innumerable Legions of his Angels of Light, the warm gleames of whose presence is able to make the Mountains to reek and smoak, and to awake that fiery principle that lies dormient in the Earth into a devouring flame.1660, Henry More, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, page 236
(rare, transitive) To cause (something) to smell.
- The slaughter of lambs in offering reeked the fore-courts of the Temple.1880, Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur
- [I]f we get caught we're for the gibbet and the chains. Our flesh will reek the wind.2017, Benjamin Myers, The Gallows Pole, Bloomsbury, published 2019, page 43
(archaic) To fall in such a way (e.g. particularly finely or heavily) as to resemble smoke.
- ... the snow still darkens the air, and reeks along the curling wreaths, as if each were a furnace.1837, Robert Mudie, Spring, or the causes, appearances, and effects, of the seasonal renovations of nature in all climats, page 266
- the sun, which had been occasionally peeping from amidst the windy, rain-reeking clouds, was getting ominously low. One part, however, of the man's prophecy was not borne out - the weather steadily improved and the wind dropped.1888, William Wilthew Fenn, A professional secret, and other tales, page 44

Noun (2)

reek (plural reeks)

A pile, a heap (as of snow, hay, etc).
- The fen "dikes" have been filled-in in some districts; and the black reeks remind one of snow-reeks, except for their blackness.1855, The Economist, page 506
- "There'll be snow-reeks as high as houses if I wait half-an-hour longer." "There'll be no occasion for ye to wade thruff snaw-reeks at all, if ye'll go wi' me. I'll tak ye across th' warpin' till ye get to the sand-lane end, […]1874, Edward PEACOCK (F.S.A.), John Markenfield. A Novel, page 118

Noun (3)

reek (plural reeks)

(Ireland) A hill; a mountain.

reek meaning in Urdu, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada

reek in Urdu

بھاپ, بخار, دھواں, بخار اٹھنا, دھواں نکلنا, دھواں دینا

reek in Bengali

তীব্র ও অপ্রীতিকর গন্ধ, বাষ্প, জলীয় বাষ্প, ধোঁয়া, ধোঁয়াশা

reek in Malayalam

smell (bad), stink, stink to high heaven: ദുർഗ്ഗന്ധം വമിക്കുക, എക്കുക, നാറുക, കെന്തുക, നാറ്റമടിക്കുക, ദുർഗ്ഗന്ധം ഉണ്ടാകുക
bad smell, stink, stench: ദുർഗ്ഗന്ധം, പൂതിഗന്ധം, പുലവ്, നാറ്റം, ചീത്ത മണം, വാട

reek in Kannada

reek: ಹೊಗೆ hoge

More languagesFewer languages

reek in Arabic: نَتَانَة natāna

Examples of reek in a sentence

The blue reeks of smoke from the cottages gave the whole widespread landscape an air of settled order and homely comfort.1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
Great Serpents, like undulating clouds, / Crested, rain-reeking.1922, Art and Archaeology, page 62:
Here a reek of straw was made, and as the reek of corn reduced in size this rose higher; there was skill in making a well balanced reek.2013 September 2, Alice Taylor, To School Through the Fields, The O'Brien Press, →ISBN:

All 40 example sentences with reek

Synonyms of reek

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of reek

Forms of reek

Noun
plural	reeks
Verb
third-person singular present	reeks
present participle	reeking
past participle	reeked
past	reeked

Plural of reek: reeks

Origin of reek

From Middle English rek, reke (“smoke”), from Old English rēc, from Proto-West Germanic *rauki, from Proto-Germanic *raukiz, from Proto-Indo-European *rowgi-. Cognate with West Frisian reek, riik, Dutch rook (“smoke”), Low German Röök, German Rauch (“smoke”), Danish røg (“smoke”), Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk røyk (“smoke”), Swedish rök (“smoke”), Faroese roykur (“smoke”), Icelandic reykur (“smoke”); also Lithuanian rū̃kti (“to smoke”), rū̃kas (“smoke, fog”), Albanian regj (“to tan”).

From Middle English reken (“to smoke”), from Old English rēocan, from Proto-West Germanic *reukan, from Proto-Germanic *reukaną, from Proto-Indo-European *rougi-. See above. Related to Dutch ruiken, Low German rüken, German riechen, Danish ryge, Swedish ryka.

From Middle English reke (“heap, pile”), from Old English hrēac.

Words formed from reek

Phrases with reek

lang may your lum reek

Words that rhyme with reek

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about reek

What does reek mean?: Reek means a strong unpleasant smell.
What is reek in Urdu?: Reek in Urdu is بھاپ, بخار, دھواں. See Reek meaning in Urdu.
How do you use reek in a sentence?: The blue reeks of smoke from the cottages gave the whole widespread landscape an air of settled order and homely comfort.
What part of speech is reek?: Reek can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce reek?: Reek is pronounced /riːk/.
What is the plural of reek?: The plural of reek is reeks.

Words near reek in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: reek (page history and authors); reek (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); reek (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); reek (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); ಹೊಗೆ (Kannada) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Mélange a trois-reek.wav.

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