reek.
A strong unpleasant smell.
Meaning & usage
A strong unpleasant smell.
Vapour; steam; smoke; fume.
Where this word comes 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-. 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”).
To have or give off a strong, unpleasant smell.
You reek of perfume.
Your fridge reeks of egg.
To be evidently associated with something unpleasant.
The boss appointing his nephew as a director reeks of nepotism.
To be emitted or exhaled, emanate, as of vapour or perfume.
To emit smoke or vapour; to steam.
To cause (something) to smell.
To fall in such a way (e.g. particularly finely or heavily) as to resemble smoke.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English reken (“to smoke”), from Old English rēocan, from Proto-West Germanic *reukan, from Proto-Germanic *reukaną, from Proto-Indo-European *rougi-. See above. Related to Dutch ruiken, Low German rüken, German riechen, Danish ryge, Swedish ryka.
A pile, a heap (as of snow, hay, etc).
Where this word comes from
From Middle English reke (“heap, pile”), from Old English hrēac.
A hill; a mountain.
Where this word comes from
Probably a transferred use (after Irish cruach (“stack (of corn), pile, mountain, hill”)) of a variant of rick, with which it is cognate.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.