Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive & intransitive verb To take heed of or to have caution.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To take heed; have a care; mind; heed; care: usually in a negative clause, often followed by of.
  • To think.
  • To take heed of; care for; regard; consider: be concerned about.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb Archaic To make account; to take heed; to care; to mind; -- often followed by of.
  • transitive verb Archaic To make account of; to care for; to heed; to regard.
  • transitive verb Poetic To concern; -- used impersonally.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb transitive To make account of; to care for; to heed; to regard; consider.
  • verb intransitive To care; to matter.
  • verb To concern, to be important
  • verb intransitive, obsolete To think.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English recken, from Old English reccan; see reg- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English recken, rekken, reken, from Old English rēccan, rēcan, from Proto-Germanic *rōkijanan (“to care, take care”), from Proto-Indo-European *rēǵ-, *rēg- (“to care, help”). Cognate with Low German roken, ruken ("to reck, care"), German geruhen ("to deign, condescend"), Icelandic rækja ("to care, regard, discharge"), Danish røgte ("to care, tend").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word reck.

Examples

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • There is a "Lesage question" as there is an "Homeric question." But of this the public recks little.

    - William Morton Fullerton, introduction to The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santilane, Lesage (tr. Smollett), Routledge & Sons, 1912

    September 11, 2008