reckoning
Pluralreckonings
Pluralreckonings
- 1The act of calculating or estimating a number, amount, or value.
By the captain's reckoning, the ship would reach port by dawn.
A rough reckoning of the costs suggested the project was over budget.
Similarcalculation, estimate, estimation, count, computation
Note
Most often met in the frame by that reckoning or by someone's reckoning, which marks a figure as one person's estimate rather than a fact. The uncountable use names the running count itself, not a single sum. Robert W. Chambers's The Younger Set (1907) has a dozing man who had lost all reckoning of time.
- 2The point at which the consequences or punishment for one's actions are finally faced.
The dictator's long-delayed reckoning arrived when the crowds filled the square.
After the scandal broke, a public reckoning over the firm's practices became unavoidable.
Similarretribution, comeuppance, judgment, accounting
Note
The bookkeeping image turned moral: the settling of accounts becomes the settling of what a person owes for their conduct. The fixed phrase day of reckoning belongs here and names the moment payment falls due. Use it for consequences that are deserved and long postponed, not for simple bad luck.
- 3A personal opinion or considered judgment about something.
By the committee's reckoning, the proposal lacked enough public support.
In the historian's reckoning, the treaty did more harm than good.
Similaropinion, judgment, view, estimation, assessment
- 4The settling of accounts or debts between two or more parties.
The two merchants met for a final reckoning of their joint venture.
No reckoning could balance the books until the missing invoice turned up.
Similarsettlement, accounting
- 5An overall summing up or assessment of something.
The report was a sober reckoning of the program's successes and failures.
Any fair reckoning of her career must include both the triumphs and the blunders.
Similarassessment, appraisal, evaluation, accounting
Note
The countable use, a reckoning of something, pairs naturally with adjectives of thoroughness or fairness: comprehensive, up-to-date, standard. It is at home in present-day scholarly prose. James Lambert, writing in 2018, calls a survey of words built on English "the most comprehensive and up-to-date reckoning" of them. The phrase by the standard reckoning means by the usual way of sizing things up.
- 6Present participle and gerund of reckon.
He sat reckoning the odds before placing his bet.
Reckoning without the weather, the planners scheduled the event outdoors.
Note
The verb form behind all the nouns: they began as this gerund, built from reckon plus -ing, just as Dutch rekening and German Rechnung are. As a verb it still takes an object or a clause, as in reckoning the odds or reckoning that rain is coming. It also carries the verb's paired phrases, reckon with and reckon without, as in the old warning about reckoning without one's host.
Less common meanings
- 7The bill or amount owed, especially for food and lodging at an inn or tavern.
The landlord demanded the reckoning before the guests could collect their horses.
After a week's lodging, the reckoning came to more than he had expected.
Note
An inn word that has dropped out of daily speech. Sir Walter Scott's Rob Roy (1817) still has a guest call for a reckoning for the wine. Today it belongs to historical settings. In a modern restaurant, ask for the bill or the check. Reckoning would sound like a deliberate period touch, or be heard as the moral sense.
- 8The rank, standing, or social importance attributed to a person.
A knight of such reckoning was rarely seated below the salt.
Though wealthy, the merchant held small reckoning among the titled nobility.
Note
A sense from the language of rank, now archaic. A person of great or small reckoning is one counted high or low, much as the verb once meant to place someone by estimation in a rank or to repute. In modern prose, standing or repute does this work. Keep reckoning in this sense for period writing.
Showing meanings only.
reckoning is a form of reckon
reckon, verb: To suppose or conclude that something is the case, especially after weighing the likely possibilities. Full entry
- Spelling
- reckon → reckoning: add -ing
Practice
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Origin
This is the gerund of the verb 'reckon', formed from 'reckon' plus '-ing', comparable to Dutch 'rekening' and German 'Rechnung'.