2020-12-23
ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด R – reek & wreck
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Dictionary.com
ออกเสียง reek = ‘REEK’
ออกเสียง wreck = ‘REK’
Dictionary of Collective Nouns and Group Terms
Reek = a pile of cornor hay—Johnson, 1755.
Examples: the snow was reek up, 1886; reek of corn, 1780.
Abused, Confused, & Misused Words by Mary Embree
Wreck
Also found in: Thesaurus, Legal, Idioms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
Wreck = destroy; devastate; shatter; tear down:
The mob will wreck the goal posts.;
the remains of something ruined:
The tornado turned the house into a wreck.
Not to be confused with:
wreak= to inflict or execute punishment:
wreak revenge;
visit; vent; unleash:
He wreaked his anger on the office staff.
Dictionary.com
“Reeking” vs. “Wreaking”: What’s The Difference?
Does Godzilla wreak havoc or reek havoc?
Reeking is a word that usually describes something
with a bad smell.
Wreaking refers to something that causes destruction or damage.
So really, when it comes to Godzilla … it depends.
Let’s examine the two homophones
and learn why each refers to something different.
What does reek mean?
As a verb, reek means a few things.
Most often, it refers to a bad smell.
You can either say, “The pile of dirty laundry reeks”
or “The pile of dirty laundry is reeking.”
Both of these sentences describe the laundry’s bad odor.
Here’s an example of reek as anoun:
The reek from the dirty laundry was so strong,
she could smell it from the hallway. Eew.
Reek may also mean “to emit” or “to have an air of.”
This sense is usually used with negative qualities,
while exude tends to be matchedwith positive ones.
This can apply to both actual smells and abstract qualities
(like emotions).
For example,
The bride exuded happiness while her ex-boyfriend reeked of jealousy.
Reek is an old word, appearing in English before the year 900.
It stems from the Middle English reke, a noun meaning “smoke,” and reken, a verbmeaning “to smoke.”
What does wreak mean?
Wreak is a verb that means “to inflict” or “to carry out.”
It’s most commonly used with havoc.
However, it can also be used with other words,
like rage, revenge,or destruction.
Someone who wreaks vengeance
inflicts punishment on those who hurt them.
Wreak can be applied to anythingthat causes damage.
A powerful storm could wreak destructionon a neighborhood.
Wreak doesn’t have to refer to physicaldamage.
For example, a friend who cancels plans, apologizes, and then cancels again might wreak havocon your emotions.
Just like reek, wreak is first recorded in English before 900.
It develops from the Middle English wreken,
itself from the Old English wrecan.
It’s related to the Old Norse reka (“to drive, avenge”)
and the Gothic wrikan (“to persecute”).
How do you use these two words?
You’ll find reek used as a noun or verb to describe
something that emits something, such as a smell:
- You reek of smoke! Where have you been?
- We followed the reek of rotten garbage and found the filthy dog hiding behind the garage.
- Mateo could smell the reek of the decomposing animal nearby.
But the word wreak is a verb
that means “to inflict.” It’s damagingsomething else:
- The townspeople have suffered a lot, and the seasonal floods continue to wreak havoc on their lives.
- If the storm alone can wreak such destruction on the area, we should assume it is not hurricane proof.
- The vigilantes vowed to wreak vengeance on their foes.
Both of these words can be used with strong, negative emotions,
such as anger.
For instance: With his red face and clenched fists, he reeked of anger.
This example uses reek to describe the strong feeling coming from someone as if he smells ofhatred.
Contrast that with this:
He wreaked destruction on his sandcastle when his parents said they couldn’t stay any longer.
In this case, wreak refers to a destructive action
(like smashing a sandcastle).
Trying to decipher the difference between the twocould wreak havoc on your brain,
but we hope that after reading this article, that’s no longer the case!
If you often get wrecked from havoc wrought on your emotions,
you might be a Cancer sign. Learn more about Cancers here,
or you can find some comfort with your pet as you read up about the important distinctions between companion animals, therapy animals, and more.
Dictionary.com
VOCAB BUILDER
What does wreck mean?
To wreck something is to destroy, ruin, or severely damage it.
It’s commonly used in the context of the destructionof physical objects,
as in He wrecked the car when he hit the tree.
Nonphysical things can also be wrecked,
as in Tom’s poor planning wrecked his chancesof finishing his homework in time to go to baseball practice.
Wreck is also commonly used as a nounreferring to
something that has been destroyed or turned into a ruin,
such as a building,
as in All that was left of the house after the fire was a burnt wreck.
Wreck is often used figuratively to describe
a person who is in bad health or who is emotionallyor mentally unwell,
as in Stress reduces him to a nervous wreck.
Wreck is also used in a more specificway
to refer to sunken or destroyed ships,
as in The diver went to the bottom of the sea to explore the wreck.
The word shipwreck means the same thing.
The word wreckage refers to
the remains of something that has been wrecked.
Example: I cried so much at the end of that movie that I was an emotional wreck for the rest of the day.
Where does wreck come from?
The first records of the word wreck come from the early 1200s.
It comes from the Old Danish wrækæ.
The words wrack (as in wrack and ruin)
and wreak (as in wreak havoc) are related.
Both the noun and verb senses of wreck
typically involve things being ruined, destroyed, or violently damaged
—not just slightly damaged or messed up.
A car wreck involves a crash that damages the car beyond repair.
A wrecking ball is used to demolish buildings.
When rain wrecks your plans for a day outside, it ruins them and forces you to do something else.
A person who’s an emotional wreck is not OK
—they’re emotional state has been greatlybroken or damaged.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
Usage Notes
'Wreck' and 'Reckless': Accidents Happen
How to avoid a wreck
We speak of someone as being reckless
when he or she does not take proper caution in doingsomething:
Local authorities say
reckless recreational shooters are likely to blame
for stray bullets that hit a home and a woman's car in Rogers County. Reflective — Cailey Dougherty, Fox23.com, 5 Dec. 2017
Reckless can be found in such phrases
as "with reckless abandon" and "reckless disregard."
It can also be found in contexts pertainingto crimes
and other violations of the law that are attributed to negligence.
By far the most common use is in phrasessuch as reckless driver.
But while a reckless driver might causea wreck,
there is no linguistic relationshipbetween reckless and wreck.
It's only coincidental that the reckin reckless
might occasionally bump into the wreck
that happens when two cars collide.
After all,
a driver who was "wreckless"
—that is, without wrecks
—would conceivably have no accidents on their record
and therefore, be very safe.
But it's the very proximity between recklessnessand wrecks,
one suspects, that causes the word meaning
"without caution" to sometimesbe spelled as wreckless:
Neither am I. I have a wreckless, wretched disposition
that gets me into all sorts of hell. I need some one to care for me.— Theodore Dreiser, The Titan, 1914
In actuality,
reck is a verb meaning "to worryor care for"
or, in now-archaic uses, "to be of matter or concern."
Tho' as their fellow-creatures some of us may appreciate their position,
yet as navy officers, what reck we of it? Still less recks the enemy.— Herman Melville, Billy Budd, 1924
Reck is related, though not directly, to reckon,
a verb used in accounting
and to mean "to think or suppose"
in Southern idiom
("He had a gun which he had stole, I reckon, and we fished and hunted…" — Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, 1881).
Wreck, meanwhile, has roots in Medieval Latin (wreccum)
and Old Norse (rec) and use that dates to before the 12th century.
With any luck, this information will help keep you focused on the road ahead.
American Heritage Dictionary
Reek
WORD HISTORY:
Reek is a word that can be said to have been degraded
by the company that it has kept.
The Old English word r¶ocan, one of two ancestors of our word,
meant “to emit vapor, steam, or smoke,”
while the other Old English ancestor, r¶can,
meant “to fumigate, expose to smoke,”
or “to cause to emit smoke, burn incense.”
Burning incense and fumigating are certainly a far cry from
the sort of thing now denoted by the verbreek.
But at least in one case Old English r¶ocan did mean “to stink,”
hardly a surprise when one considers how bad some smoke smells.
Middle English reken, the descendant of these two Old English words,
never meant “to stink,”
but it could refer to a stench while meaning “to rise, ascend.”
It would seem that the various exhalations
of heated persons and animals,
of freshly shed blood, and of smoke
referred to by Middle English reken
and its Modern English descendant
reek eventually overwhelmed the word,
so that as far as concrete senses are concerned,
we largely think of it as meaning “to stink.”
Common Errors In English Usage Dictionary
Reeking havoc & wreaking havoc
“Reeking” means “smelling strongly,”
so that can’t be right.
The phrase simply means “working great destruction.”
“Havoc” has always referred to general destruction in English,
but one very old phrase incorporating the word was “cry havoc,”
which meant to give an army the signal for pillage.
To “play havoc with” means the same thing as to “wreak havoc."
Avoid as well the mistaken “wreck havoc."
