reck

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See also: Reck and Réck

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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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”).

Pronunciation

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Verb

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

  1. (transitive, intransitive (usually with of or for), archaic) To take account of (someone or something); to care for; to consider, to heed, to regard.
    • 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 Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:
      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.
    • 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 as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC, line 50:
      […] with that care lost / went all his fear: of God, or hell, or worse / he recked not […]
    • 1822, John E. Hall, editor, The Port Folio, volume XIV:
      Little thou reck'st of this sad store!
      Would thou might never reck them more!
    • 1835, William Gilmore Simms, The Partisan, Harper, Chapter XI, page 136:
      She recks not now, as of old, whether her word carries with it the sting or the sweet—it is not now in her thought to ask whether pain or pleasure follows the thoughtless slight or the scornful pleasantry. The victim suffers, but she recks not of his grief.
    • 1900, Ernest Dowson, Villanelle of Marguerite's, lines 10–11:
      She knows us not, nor recks if she enthrall
      With voice and eyes and fashion of her hair […]
    • 1922 February, James Joyce, Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], →OCLC:
      Little recked he perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart sometimes, piercing to the core.
  2. (catenative, archaic) To want (to do something); to desire to, to be inclined to, to care to.
  3. (intransitive with of, archaic) To know about, to know of, to be aware of.
    • 1866, Emma Jane Worboise, “Mr. Armstrong’s Will”, in Sir Julian’s Wife, London: Virtue Brothers and Co., […], →OCLC, page 1:
      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; […]
  4. (transitive, obsolete) To reckon, to consider, to regard (someone or something) as.
  5. (transitive, intransitive, archaic, dialectal) To concern (someone); to be important or of interest to; to matter.
    It recks not! ― It doesn’t matter!
  6. (reflexive, obsolete, dialectal) To concern oneself, to trouble oneself.

Derived terms

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Anagrams

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