reek
/riːk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.76 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
Example Sentences
- "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."
- "1768, Alexander Ross (poet), "Helenore; or, the fortunate Shepherdess": a Poem in the Broad Scoth Dialect Now, by this time, the sun begins to leam, And lit the hill-heads with his morning beam; And birds, and beasts, and folk to be a-steer, And clouds o’ reek frae lum heads to appear."
- "The blue reeks of smoke from the cottages gave the whole widespread landscape an air of settled order and homely comfort."
- "You reek of perfume."
- "Your fridge reeks of egg."
- "The boss appointing his nephew as a director reeks of nepotism."
Etymology
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”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: rek, rēc, *rauki, *raukiz, *rowgi-, reken