Part 137

Reefing bowsprit, a bowsprit so rigged that it can easily be run in or shortened by sliding inboard, as in cutters.

Reef"y (-?), a. Full of reefs or rocks.

Reek (rk), n. A rick. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

Reek, n. [AS. rc; akin to OFries. rk, LG. & D. rook, G. rauch, OHG. rouh, Dan. rög, Sw. rök, Icel. reykr, and to AS. reócan to reek, smoke, Icel. rjka, G. riechen to smell.] Vapor; steam; smoke; fume.

As hateful to me as the reek of a limekiln.

Shak.

Reek, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Reeked (rkt); p. pr. & vb. n. Reeking.] [As. rcan. See Reek vapor.] To emit vapor, usually that which is warm and moist; to be full of fumes; to steam; to smoke; to exhale.

Few chimneys reeking you shall espy.

Spenser.

I found me laid In balmy sweat, which with his beams the sun Soon dried, and on the reeking moisture fed.

Milton.

The coffee rooms reeked with tobacco.

Macaulay.

Reek"y (-?), a. [From 2d Reek; cf. Reechy.] 1. Soiled with smoke or steam; smoky; foul. Shak.

2. Emitting reek. "Reeky fen." Sir W. Scott.

Reel (r?l), n. [Gael. righil.] A lively dance of the Highlanders of Scotland; also, the music to the dance; -- often called Scotch reel.

Virginia reel, the common name throughout the United States for the old English "country dance," or contradance (contredanse). Bartlett.

Reel, n. [AS. kre&?;l: cf. Icel. kr&?;ll a weaver's reed or sley.] 1. A frame with radial arms, or a kind of spool, turning on an axis, on which yarn, threads, lines, or the like, are wound; as, a log reel, used by seamen; an angler's reel; a garden reel.

2. A machine on which yarn is wound and measured into lays and hanks, -- for cotton or linen it is fifty-four inches in circuit; for worsted, thirty inches. McElrath.

3. (Agric.) A device consisting of radial arms with horizontal stats, connected with a harvesting machine, for holding the stalks of grain in position to be cut by the knives.

Reel oven, a baker's oven in which bread pans hang suspended from the arms of a kind of reel revolving on a horizontal axis. Knight.

Reel, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Reeled (r?ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Reeling. ] 1. To roll. [Obs.]

And Sisyphus an huge round stone did reel.

Spenser.

2. To wind upon a reel, as yarn or thread.

Reel, v. i. [Cf. Sw. ragla. See 2d Reel.] 1. To incline, in walking, from one side to the other; to stagger.

They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man.

Ps. cvii. 27.