reek
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reek¹
- /riːk/
Sounds like wreak · Rhymes with -iːk
Where it comes from
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”).
noun reeks
- A strong unpleasant smell.
- 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.
reek²
- /riːk/
Sounds like wreak · Rhymes with -iːk
Where it comes from
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.
verb reeks · reeking · reeked
- To have or give off a strong, unpleasant smell. You reek of perfume.
- To be evidently associated with something unpleasant. The boss appointing his nephew as a director reeks of nepotism.
- To be emitted or exhaled, emanate, as of vapour or perfume.
- 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.
- To cause (something) to smell. The slaughter of lambs in offering reeked the fore-courts of the Temple.
- 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.
Similar: funk, honk, hum, niff, pong, reek, smell, stink, stink to high heaven, whiff
reek³
- /riːk/
Sounds like wreak · Rhymes with -iːk
Where it comes from
From Middle English reke (“heap, pile”), from Old English hrēac.
noun 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.
reek⁴
- /riːk/
Sounds like wreak · Rhymes with -iːk
Where it comes from
Probably a transferred use (after Irish cruach (“stack (of corn), pile, mountain, hill”)) of a variant of rick, with which it is cognate.
noun reeks
- A hill; a mountain.
