Reck or wreck?
reck is a verb meaning “To take account of (someone or something); to care for; to consider, to heed…”; wreck is a noun meaning “Something or someone that has been ruined”. They sound the same (/ɹɛk/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) wreck is about 68 times as common as reck.
What is the difference between reck and wreck?
| reck | wreck | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | noun, verb |
| Meaning | Something or someone that has been ruined The remains of something that has been severely damaged or worn down To destroy violently; to cause severe damage to something, to a point where it no longer works, or is useless | |
| Example | It recks not! | He was an emotional wreck after the death of his wife |
| Forms | recks, recking, recked, raught | wrecks |
| Pronunciation | /ɹɛk/ | /ˈɹɛk/ /ˈɹæk/ |
| In writing | about once in every 7 million words | 9.1 times per million words |
Sources: reck and wreck in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of reck and wreck
wreck
- 1
Something or someone that has been ruined
He was an emotional wreck after the death of his wife
- 2
To destroy violently; to cause severe damage to something, to a point where it no longer works, or is useless
He wrecked the car in a collision
- 3
The remains of something that has been severely damaged or worn down
- 4
To ruin or dilapidate
- 5
An event in which something is damaged through collision
- 6
AustraliaTo dismantle wrecked vehicles or other objects, to reclaim any useful parts
- 7
A shipwreck: an event in which a ship is heavily damaged or destroyed
- 8
To involve in a wreck; hence, to cause to suffer ruin; to balk of success, and bring disaster on
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, reck or wreck?
reck appears about once in every 7 million words; wreck 9.1 times per million words.
reck about once in every 7 million wordswreck 9.1 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search reck vs wreck?
“reck vs wreck” is searched about 90 times a month on Google and 20 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“wreck vs reck”, “reck or wreck”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.