reckoning

Etymology

It is formed from English reckon + -ing.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} The verb is from Old English gerecenian (“to explain, recount, arrange in order”),^[4][5][7] which Dictionary.com says is attested once,^[8] and which the OED and Barnhart relate to right.^[2][5] Etymonline traces it through Proto-Germanic *(ga)rakinaz (“ready, straightforward”) to Proto-Indo-European *reg- (“to move in a straight line”).^[4] The noun has close parallels in Middle Dutch rekeninge, Dutch rekening, Middle Low German rēkeninge, Old High German rehhanunga and German Rechnung, and in Scandinavian words such as Swedish räkning and Danish regning, which the OED takes ultimately from Middle Low German.^[2][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The act of accounting to God after death for one's conduct in life: about 1335, in the poems printed as the Kildare-Gedichte.^[2] Barnhart has an earlier record, before 1325 in the Cursor Mundi, for a narrative account,^[5] and Etymonline likewise starts with "a narration, account" in the early 14th century.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Etymonline sums up the word's general sense as "a summing up", whether in words or in numbers.^[4] The religious accounting and the steward's account of money in his charge (1340) are both older in the record than plain counting, which appears around 1380–92.^[2][5][4] The tavern bill came in about 1405, in Chaucer.^[2][4] The idea of a final account produced the day of reckoning, the Last Judgement in the OED's first quotation of 1547 and later any moment of being called to account;^[2] Etymonline's date for the phrase is about 1600.^[4] Calculation also led to the sailor's use, the working out of a ship's position, from the 1660s,^[4] and to the sense of a judgment or opinion, recorded from before 1393, in Gower.^[2] Johnson (1755) listed, among others, computation, accounts of debtor and creditor, money charged by a host, and esteem.^[9] In south Staffordshire dialect a reckoning was the time when wages were paid.^[10] The sporting use, in or out of the reckoning, dates from 1913.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1335 – an accounting to God after death for one's conduct.^[2]
• 1340 – an account of money or property entrusted to one's charge, in the Ayenbite.^[2][5]
• c. 1390 – an account of one's conduct or actions in general.^[2]
• c. 1392 – an act of counting or calculating, in the Equatorie of Planetis.^[2] Barnhart dates this sense to about 1380.^[5]
• before 1393 – a way of regarding something; an opinion, in Gower.^[2]
• c. 1405 – a statement of charges; a bill, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.^[2][4]
• c. 1480 – a mode of calculating, especially dates; a calendar.^[2]
• 1547 – the Day of Judgement; later any time of being called to account.^[2]
• 1575 – the calculated term of a pregnancy (obsolete by 1844).^[2]
• 1582 – esteem or worth (obsolete by 1653).^[2]
• 1660s – in navigation, the calculation of a ship's position.^[4]
• 1913 – chiefly in sport, contention for a leading place.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of counting or calculating; also, the result: By her reckoning the journey would take nine days.^[11][6][2]
2. A method of calculating, especially of dates or time.^[6][2]
3. A bill or account of money owed.^[11][6][2]
4. The settlement of an account.^[11][2]
5. A time of being called to account; retribution for one's actions, especially in the phrase day of reckoning.^[11][2]
6. (nautical) The calculation of a ship's position, as in dead reckoning.^[11][4]
7. An opinion or estimate; a way of considering something.^[2][3]
8. in or out of the reckoning: chiefly in sport, in or out of contention for a place.^[2]
9. (obsolete, 1582–1653) Esteem or worth.^[2][9]

Word family

• day of reckoning
• dead reckoning

Related words

• reckon
• right

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
10. ^ 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)
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins