reckon

• reckin (dialectal)
• recken (obsolete)

From Middle English rekenen, from Old English recenian (“to pay; arrange, dispose, reckon”) and ġerecenian (“to explain, recount, relate”); both from Proto-Germanic *rekanōną (“to count, explain”), from Proto-Germanic *rekanaz (“swift, ready, prompt”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ- (“to make straight or right”).

Cognate with Scots rekkin (“to ennumerate, mention, narrate, rehearse, count, calculate, compute”), West Frisian rekkenje (“to account, tally, calculate, figure”), Dutch rekenen (“to count, calculate, reckon”), Low German rekenen (“to reckon”), German rechnen (“to count, reckon, calculate”), Swedish räkna (“to count, calculate, reckon”), Icelandic reikna (“to calculate”). See also reck, reach.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɹɛkən/

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• Rhymes: -ɛkən

reckon (third-person singular simple present reckons, present participle reckoning, simple past and past participle reckoned)

1. To count; to enumerate; to number; also, to compute; to calculate.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Leviticus 27:18:

     then the priest shall reckon unto him the money according to the years that remain

   I reckoned above two hundred and fifty on the outside of the church. (Can we date this quote by Joseph Addison?)

2. To count as in a number, rank, or series; to estimate by rank or quality; to place by estimation; to account; to esteem; to repute.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), imprinted at London: By Robert Barker, […], OCLC 964384981, Luke 23:37:

     He was reckoned among the transgressors

   • For him I reckon not in high estate. (Can we date this quote by John Milton?)
3. To charge, attribute, or adjudge to one, as having a certain quality or value.
   • 1611, King James Version, Romans 4:9

     ...faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness.

   • Without her eccentricities being reckoned to her for a crime. Nathaniel Hawthorne.
4. To conclude, as by an enumeration and balancing of chances; hence, to think; to suppose; -- followed by an objective clause
   • 1611, King James Version, Romans 8:18
   • For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
   • 1611, King James Version, Romans 6:11
   • Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin...
   • I reckon he won't try that again.
5. To reckon with something or somebody or not, i.e to reckon without something or somebody: to take into account, deal with, consider or not, i.e. to misjudge, ignore, not take into account, not deal with, not consider or fail to consider; e.g. reckon without one's host
6. (intransitive) To make an enumeration or computation; to engage in numbering or computing.
7. To come to an accounting; to draw up or settle accounts; to examine and strike the balance of debt and credit; to adjust relations of desert or penalty.
   • Parfay," sayst thou, sometime he reckon shall." (Can we date this quote by Chaucer?)

• number
• enumerate
• compute
• calculate
• estimate
• value
• esteem
• account
• repute

• calculate
• guess

• reckon in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

• conker, rocken