Reckless or wreckless?
reckless is an adjective meaning “Careless or heedless; headstrong or rash”; wreckless is an adjective meaning “Without causing or suffering a wreck”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) reckless is about 79 times as common as wreckless.
What is the difference between reckless and wreckless?
| reckless | wreckless | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective | adjective |
| Meaning | Careless or heedless; headstrong or rash Indifferent or oblivious to danger or the consequences thereof | Without causing or suffering a wreck |
| Example | none recorded | none recorded |
| Forms | recklesser, recklessest | none |
| Pronunciation | /ˈɹɛkləs/ [ˈɹʷɛkləs] ~ [ˈɹʷɛkls̩] | not recorded |
| In writing | 6.6 times per million words | about once in every 12 million words |
Sources: reckless and wreckless 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 reckless and wreckless
reckless
- 1
Careless or heedless; headstrong or rash
- 2
Indifferent or oblivious to danger or the consequences thereof
wreckless
- 1
Without causing or suffering a wreck
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, reckless or wreckless?
reckless appears 6.6 times per million words; wreckless about once in every 12 million words.
reckless 6.6 times per million wordswreckless about once in every 12 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 reckless vs wreckless?
“reckless vs wreckless” is searched about 30 times a month on Bing (Google reports it together with close variants, so it has no figure of its own) in the United States.
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.