reck

Definition

To take account of (someone or something); to care for; to consider, to heed, to regard.

Etymology

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.

Example Sentences

• "Do not, as some ungracious pastors do, / Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven, / Whiles, like a puffed and reckless libertine, / Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads, / And recks not his own rede."
• "[…]with that care lost / went all his fear: of God, or hell, or worse / he recked not[…]"
• "Little thou reck'st of this sad store! Would thou might never reck them more!"