reck
/ɹɛk/obsolete
reck is spelled R-E-C-K: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 7 million words in written English, the 81,375th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “reck vs wreck” about 90 times a month (Google, United States). As a verb, reck means “To take account of (someone or something); to care for; to consider, to heed, to regard” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in reck?
| Letters | 4: R-E-C-K |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 7 million words; the 81,375th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How common is reck?
Reck appears about once in every 7 million words in written English, the 81,375th 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).
How do you pronounce reck?
- /ɹɛk/
Reck 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)-Neøn-reck.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with reck
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: rec, wreck (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of reck
- recks present, singular, he/she/it
- recking participle, present
- recked participle, past
- raught participle, past
- reak
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does reck mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
archaicTo take account of (someone or something); to care for; to consider, to heed, to regard.
- 2
archaicTo want (to do something); to desire to, to be inclined to, to care to.
- 3
archaicTo know about, to know of, to be aware of.
- 4
obsoleteTo reckon, to consider, to regard (someone or something) as.
- 5
archaicTo concern (someone); to be important or of interest to; to matter.
It recks not!
- 6
obsoleteTo concern oneself, to trouble oneself.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does reck come from?
From Middle English recken, rekken, reken, from Old Norse rœkja (compare Old English rēċċan, rēċan (“to care, reck, take care of, be interested in, care for, desire”); whence English retch), from Proto-Germanic *rōkijaną (“to care, take care”), from Proto-Indo-European *rēǵ-, *rēg- (“to care, help”). Cognate with obsolete Dutch roeken, Low German roken, ruken (“to reck, care”), German geruhen (“to deign, condescend”), Icelandic rækja (“to care, regard, discharge”), Danish røgte (“to care, tend”), Swedish rykta (“to groom”). See reckon.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).