Etymologically
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reckless

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Pronunciation

  • /ˈɹɛkləs/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English recheles or reckeles,[2][3][4] inherited from Old English rēcelēas (“careless, heedless”), earlier reccilēas,[4][5][6] formed from rēce (“care, heed”) (related to reccan (“to care”)) and -lēas (“-less”).[4][7][2] It matches Middle Dutch roekeloos, Middle Low German rōkelōs and Old High German ruahhalōs (modern German ruchlos (“wicked”) and Dutch roekeloos),[5][8][7] so the OED leaves open whether it was formed in English from reck and -less or is a shared West Germanic compound,[9] as Ayto believes.[10] The spellings with ck appear from the 12th century, under the influence of the verb.[8][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Heedless of the consequences of one's actions, rash: early Old English, in the Corpus Glossary, where reccileas glosses Latin prefaricator.[9][6]

Semantic evolution

Old English also used the word of someone careless in a duty, and Alfred's translation of Bede calls a man too rēcelēas about his own salvation.[9][6][4] In Middle English it could mean carefree (c. 1400 to 1475, in Piers Plowman) or uncaring towards others (c. 1425 to 1758), and Chaucer has it twelve times, as recchelees and similar forms.[9][12] An Old English verb, "to neglect", lasted until 1600.[9] Johnson (1755) glossed the adjective "careless, heedless, mindless".[13] The careless sense survives in phrases like reckless of the cost, while the main sense, rash and heedless of danger, has been constant since Old English.[9][14]

Timeline

  • early Old English – careless of consequences, rash.[9]
  • before 899 – rēcelēas in Alfred's translation of Bede.[4]
  • c. 1200 – reckelæs, in the Ormulum.[4][6]
  • c. 1400 – carefree (obsolete by 1475).[9]
  • a1450 – used as an adverb, recklessly.[9]
  • 1600 – last use of the verb, to neglect.[9]

Modern meaning

Adjective

  1. Taking no care about danger or the consequences of one's actions; rash: a reckless overtaking manoeuvre.
  2. Careless or heedless of something, used with of: reckless of their own safety.

Word family

  • recklessly
  • recklessness
  • reck
  • careless
  • heedless

Usage notes

In the dialects of Cumberland, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Gloucestershire, East Anglia, Hampshire and Somerset, reckless (also recklas, racalus, rickless) was a name of the auricula, a corruption of auriculas.[15]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
  4. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  6. ^ a b c d Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
  7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  8. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  11. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  12. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
  13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  14. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)