To smell strongly and unpleasantly; a bad or foul smell.
From Old English 'recan' meaning 'to smoke or steam,' from Proto-Germanic 'rauk-.' The word originally meant smoke or vapor before it came to mean a stinky smell.
In old English texts, 'reek' described smoke rising from fires, but since smoke often smelled bad in medieval villages, the word gradually switched meanings—the visible became the olfactory.
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