reck

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Verb

reck (recks, present participle recking; past and past participle recked)

1. (transitive or intransitive, archaic) To make account of; to care for; to heed, regard, consider.
   • 1603, William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Act 1, Scene 3:

     Ophelia:
     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.

   • 1922, James Joyce, Ulysses, Chapter 13:

     Little recked he perhaps for what she felt, that dull aching void in her heart sometimes, piercing to the core.

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II, line 50:

     ...with that care lost
     went all his fear: of God, or hell, or worse
     he recked not...

   • 1822, John E. Hall (ed.), The Port Folio, vol. XIV:

     Little thou reck'st of this sad store!

     Would thou might never reck them more!

   • 1900, Ernest Dowson, Villanelle of Marguerite's, lines 10-11:

     She knows us not, nor recks if she enthrall

     With voice and eyes and fashion of her hair […]

2. (transitive or intransitive, archaic, dialectal) To concern, to be important or earnest.

   hit#Etymology 2|Hit ne recketh! (= It recks not!'')

   • 1637, John Milton, Lycidas:

     What recks it them?

3. (intransitive, obsolete) To think.

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