reek

plural reeks

1. countableuncountableA strong unpleasant smell.
2. ScotlandcountableuncountableVapour; steam; smoke; fume.

   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.

   2 more examples

   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.

   c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, (please specify the act number in uppercase Roman numerals, and the scene number in lowercase Roman numerals)

   The blue reeks of smoke from the cottages gave the whole widespread landscape an air of settled order and homely comfort.

   1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC

present singular third person reeks · participle present reeking · participle past reeked · past reeked

1. intransitiveTo have or give off a strong, unpleasant smell.

   You reek of perfume.

   1 more example

   Your fridge reeks of egg.

2. figurativelyintransitiveTo be evidently associated with something unpleasant.

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

   Synonyms: smack

3. archaicintransitiveTo be emitted or exhaled, emanate, as of vapour or perfume.
4. archaicintransitiveTo emit smoke or vapour; to steam.

   […] innumerable Legions of his Angels of Light, the warm gleames of whose presence is able to make the Mountains to reek and smoak, and to awake that fiery principle that lies dormient in the Earth into a devouring flame.

   1660, Henry More, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness, page 236

5. raretransitiveTo cause (something) to smell.First known use 19th c.

   The slaughter of lambs in offering reeked the fore-courts of the Temple.

   1880, Lew Wallace, Ben-Hur

   1 more example

   [I]f we get caught we're for the gibbet and the chains. Our flesh will reek the wind.

   2017, Benjamin Myers, The Gallows Pole, Bloomsbury, published 2019, page 43

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

   ... the snow still darkens the air, and reeks along the curling wreaths, as if each were a furnace.

   1837, Robert Mudie, Spring, or the causes, appearances, and effects, of the seasonal renovations of nature in all climats, page 266

   2 more examples

   the sun, which had been occasionally peeping from amidst the windy, rain-reeking clouds, was getting ominously low. One part, however, of the man's prophecy was not borne out - the weather steadily improved and the wind dropped.

   1888, William Wilthew Fenn, A professional secret, and other tales, page 44

   Great Serpents, like undulating clouds, / Crested, rain-reeking. Their bellies blacken the sky; / Their fierce rains flood earth's hill-rimmed vale; / Their drumming is from mountain to mountain; / From horizon to horizon is their thunder.

   1922, Art and Archaeology, page 62

plural reeks

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

   The fen "dikes" have been filled-in in some districts; and the black reeks remind one of snow-reeks, except for their blackness.

   1855, The Economist, page 506

   2 more examples

   "There'll be snow-reeks as high as houses if I wait half-an-hour longer." "There'll be no occasion for ye to wade thruff snaw-reeks at all, if ye'll go wi' me. I'll tak ye across th' warpin' till ye get to the sand-lane end, […]

   1874, Edward PEACOCK (F.S.A.), John Markenfield. A Novel, page 118

   Here a reek of straw was made, and as the reek of corn reduced in size this rose higher; there was skill in making a well balanced reek. The story of the harvest was told at the front of the thresher.

   2013 September 2, Alice Taylor, To School Through the Fields, The O'Brien Press, →ISBN

plural reeks

1. IrelandA hill; a mountain.