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reek

/riːk/noun, verb

reek is a noun meaning “A strong unpleasant smell” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-E-E-K and has one syllable, and it appears about once in every 2 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of reek is reeks.

What does reek mean?

noun

  1. 1

    A strong unpleasant smell.

  2. 2

    ScotlandVapour; steam; smoke; fume.

  3. 3

    A pile, a heap (as of snow, hay, etc).

  4. 4

    IrelandA hill; a mountain.

verb

  1. 1

    To have or give off a strong, unpleasant smell.

    You reek of perfume.

  2. 2

    To be evidently associated with something unpleasant.

    The boss appointing his nephew as a director reeks of nepotism.

  3. 3

    archaicTo be emitted or exhaled, emanate, as of vapour or perfume.

  4. 4

    archaicTo emit smoke or vapour; to steam.

  5. 5

    rareTo cause (something) to smell.

  6. 6

    archaicTo fall in such a way (e.g. particularly finely or heavily) as to resemble smoke.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce reek?

  • /riːk/

Reek has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Mélange_a_trois-reek.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of reek

  • reeks plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • reeking participle, present
  • reeked participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is reek?

Reek appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 38,863rd most frequent word form in the list.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

Words people confuse with reek

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

reek vs wreak140 G

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Reek in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpuanteur (unpleasant smell), empester, puer, fouetter, schlinguer (to have or give off a strong, unpleasant smell)
GermanGestank (unpleasant smell), stinken (to have or give off a strong, unpleasant smell), Dampf (vapor)
Portuguesefedor, catinga (unpleasant smell), feder (to have or give off a strong, unpleasant smell), vapor (vapor), cheirar (to be evidently associated with something…)
Spanishhedor, fetidez, peste, tufo (unpleasant smell), vapor, vaho (vapor)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.

Where does reek come 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-.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).