reek
/riːk/ verb C2- To have or give off a strong, unpleasant smell. · You reek of perfume.· Your fridge reeks of egg.
- To be evidently associated with something unpleasant. · The boss appointing his nephew as a director reeks of nepotism.
He/she/it reeks · Past reeked · Past participle reeked · -ing form reeking
Verb forms
- Base form
- reek
- He/she/it
- reeks
- Past
- reeked
- Past participle
- reeked
- -ing form
- reeking
From the library
The prisoner followed his guide, who led him into a room almost under ground, whose bare and reeking walls seemed as though impregnated with tears; a lamp placed on a stool illumined the apartment faintly, and showed Dantès the features of his conductor, an under-jailer, ill-clothed, and of sullen appearance.
A cold, damp reek from the moat chilled us to the bones and set our teeth chattering.
In rapid succession we passed through the fringe of fashionable London, hotel London, theatrical London, literary London, commercial London, and, finally, maritime London, till we came to a riverside city of a hundred thousand souls, where the tenement houses swelter and reek with the outcasts of Europe.
Beside it were the crumbling remains of the cottages of the miners, driven away no doubt by the foul reek of the surrounding swamp.
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