wick
See also: Wick and -wick
English
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /wɪk/
Audio (AU) (file) - Rhymes: -ɪk
Etymology 1
From Middle English weke, wicke (“wick”), from Old English wēoce (“wick”), from Proto-West Germanic *weukā (“flax bundle, wick”), from Proto-Indo-European *weg- (“to weave”).[1]
Compare West Frisian wjok, wjuk (“wing”), Dutch wiek (“wing; propeller, blade; wick”), German Wieche (“wisp; wick”).
Noun
wick (plural wicks)
- A bundle, twist, braid, or woven strip of cord, fabric, fibre, or other porous material in a candle, oil lamp, kerosene heater, or the like, that draws up liquid fuel, such as melted tallow, wax, or the oil, delivering it to the base of the flame for conversion to gases and burning; any other length of material burned for illumination in small successive portions.
- Trim the wick fairly short, so that the flame does not smoke.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, OCLC 960102938, stanza 30, page 333:
- But true it is that when the oyle is ſpent, / The light goes out, and weeke is throwne away;
- Any piece of porous material that conveys liquid by capillary action, such as a strip of gauze placed in a wound to serve as a drain.
- (curling) A narrow opening in the field, flanked by other players' stones.
- (curling) A shot where the played stone touches a stationary stone just enough that the played stone changes direction.
- (slang, euphemistic) The penis.
- 2008, Marcus Van Heller, Nest of Vixens, →ISBN, page 17:
- His wick was stone stiff.
- 2009, Ira Robbins, Kick It Till It Breaks, Trouser Press, →ISBN, page 130:
- Her laugh wasn't cruel in tone, but it cut through Husk like a scalpel, withering his wick even further.
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Derived terms
- candlewick
- get on someone's wick
Translations
the porous cord that draws up liquid fuel for burning
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Verb
wick (third-person singular simple present wicks, present participle wicking, simple past and past participle wicked)
- (transitive) To convey or draw off (liquid) by capillary action.
- The fabric wicks perspiration away from the body.
- (intransitive, of a liquid) To traverse (i.e. be conveyed by capillary action) through a wick or other porous material, as water through a sponge. Usually followed by through.
- The moisture slowly wicked through the wood.
- (curling) To strike (a stone) obliquely; to strike (a stationary stone) just enough that the played stone changes direction.
Etymology 2
From earlier Middle English wik, wich (“village, hamlet, town”); from Old English wīc (“dwelling place, abode”); Germanic borrowing from Latin vīcus (“village, estate”) (see vicinity).
It came to mean “dairy farm” around the 13th or 14th century; for instance, Gatwick (“Goat-farm”). Cognates include Old High German wîch, wih (“village”), German Weichbild (“municipal area”), Dutch wijk (“quarter, district”), Old Frisian wik, Old Saxon wic (“village”), as well as Ancient Greek οἶκος (oîkos, “house”), whence English eco-. Doublet of vicus and -wich.
Noun
wick (plural wicks)
- (Britain, dialect, chiefly East Anglia and Essex) A farm, especially a dairy farm.
Usage notes
- Present in compounds (meaning “village”, “jurisdiction”, or “harbour”), as -wick, such as bailiwick, sheriffwick, Warwick, Greenwick, Gatwick, Southwick, Hampton Wick etc., also -wich.
Related terms
- vicinity
- villa
- village
- -wich
- -wick
Etymology 3
Inherited from Northern Middle English whyk (southern quyk), from Old English cwic (“alive”); similar to an archaic meaning of quick (“endowed with life; having a high degree of vigor, energy, or activity”), and quicken (“come to life”), to which it is related.
Adjective
wick (comparative wicker or more wick, superlative wickest or most wick)
- (Britain, dialect, derogatory, chiefly Yorkshire) Alive; lively; full of life; active; bustling; nimble; quick.
- as wick as an eel
- T' wickest young chap at ivver Ah seen.
- He's a strange wick bairn alus runnin' aboot.
- I'll skin ye wick! (skin you alive)
- I thowt they was dead last back end but they're wick enif noo.
- "Are you afraid of going across the churchyard in the dark?" "Lor' bless yer noä miss! It isn't dead uns I'm scar'd on, it's wick uns."(Can we date this quote?)
- 1860, "The Yorkshire Horsedealer", in Ballads and Songs of the Peasantry of England
- I'll swop wi' him my poor deead[sic] horse for his wick, […]
- (Britain, dialect, derogatory, chiefly Yorkshire, of inanimate objects) resistant to being put to use, stiff, stubborn (as for example a rope or a screw).
Related terms
- wicken
Translations
Alive, lively
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Noun
wick
- (Britain, obsolete, dialect, chiefly Yorkshire) Liveliness; life.
- (Britain, dialect, chiefly Yorkshire) The growing part of a plant nearest to the roots.
- Fed close? Why, it's eaten into t' hard wick. (spoken of a pasture which has been fed very close)
- (Britain, dialect, chiefly Yorkshire, horticulture) (Usually plural) The parts of weed roots that remain viable in the ground after inadequate digging prior to cultivation.
- (Britain, dialect, chiefly Yorkshire) A maggot.
Etymology 4
From Old Norse vik, from víkja (“to move, bend, curve”), from Proto-Germanic *wīkwaną.
Noun
wick (plural wicks)
- (now dialectal) A corner of the mouth or eye.
- 1969, Vladimir Nabokov, chapter 12, in Ada, or, Ardor: A Family Chronicle, Harmondsworth, London: Penguin Books, published 1970, →ISBN, part 1, page 64:
- She considered him. A fiery droplet in the wick of her mouth considered him.
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References
- Guus Kroonen, The Proto-Germanic n-stems: A study in diachronic morphophonology (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2011), 160–1.
- "wick" in BBC - North Yorkshire - Voices - Glossary
- Notes and Queries, Tenth Series, Vol. IV, 1905, page 170
- A. Smythe Palmer, Folk-Etymology, A Dictionary of verbal corruptions or words perverted in form or meaning, by false derivation or mistaken analogy, 1882, page xxii
- John Christopher Atkinson, A glossary of the Cleveland dialect: explanatory, derivative, and critical, 1868, page 573
- W. D. Parish, Dictionary of the Sussex Dialect and Collection of Provincialisms in use in the County of Sussex, 1877, page 274-5
- wick at OneLook Dictionary Search
- wick in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
Anagrams
- Cwik, KWIC
Central Franconian
Alternative forms
- weck (most of Ripuarian)
- wiet (westernmost Ripuarian)
- weit (Moselle Franconian)
Etymology
From Middle High German wīt, from Old High German (*)wīd, northern variant of wīt, from Proto-Germanic *wīdaz.
The word underwent the regular Ripuarian velarisation -īd- → -igd- → -ig-.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ʋik/
Adjective
wick (masculine wigge, feminine wick, comparative wigger, superlative et wickste)
- (Kölsch) far; wide; distant
- Nemm et Auto, der Wääch es ze wick für ze laufe.
- Take the car, the distance is too far to walk.
Middle English
Adjective
wick
- Alternative form of wikke
Yola
Alternative forms
- wik
Etymology
From Middle English wycke, variant of weke, from Old English wiċe, from Proto-West Germanic *wikā.
Noun
wick
- week
References
- Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 78