The Many Surprising Meanings of the Word “Wick”
I count 9 meanings for this unexpectedly versatile word
Wick. Thanks to a couple of different roots — an Old English one meaning “bundle” and a Latin one meaning “dwelling” — as well as a number of colorful metaphors, this unassuming word contains multitudes. After a bit of digging, I’ve found 9 separate meanings for this little overachiever.
From formal to slang, modern to archaic, literal to metaphorical, wick is one seriously versatile word that takes you on a journey back to the Middle Ages and beyond.
1. The string inside a candle that supplies the fuel to the flame
From the German word wieche, meaning “flax” or “bundle,” this version of wick hasn’t changed much since it was first recorded in the early middle ages.
2. To drain moisture from something
Via the same root, wick also has a verbal form, as in, “The boot had a special lining that could wick sweat away from the foot, keeping it dry.”
3. A village or dwelling place
Wick has a separate origin that starts with the Latin vicus, meaning “village.” This is the same root that we get the word “vicinity” from. It’s for this reason that wick (and its alternate spelling, wich) has become a suffix for many place names in England. From major towns like Ipswich and West Bromwich to villages including Brunswick, you’re never far from a wick wherever you go in the UK.
4. An inlet or bay
Wick in this sense comes from the Norse word, vík, meaning “an inlet of the sea.” You’ve seen vík before as the root of the word “Vikings,” who got their name due to a tendency to emerge from the sea.
Places that had inlets from the ocean into land were — as you can imagine — logical landing spots for Norse settlers arriving in their boats centuries ago. Coastal towns like Norwich and Berwick got their wick suffixes this way (even though the spelling is indistinguishable from Ipswich and Brunswick, whose wicks are of the “village” variety above).
5. A dairy farm
Dairy farms become known as wicks around the 13 century — building on the idea of a wick being a dwelling place or hamlet — largely in Northern areas of England like Yorkshire.
The type of dairy produced by the farm would give the place its full name, meaning that Gatwick is so-called because it was originally a goat farm (a goat wick), and the town Chiswick derived its name from a reputation for producing cheese (cheese wick).
6. Lively or full of energy
Wick also has a (quite rare) regional use in Yorkshire as a variation of the word “quick,” as in this passage from The Secret Garden:
‘It’s as wick as you or me,’ he said; … Martha had told her that ‘wick’ meant ‘alive’ or ‘lively’.
7. A type of shot in curling
In the sport of curling, wick is what happens when a stone that’s been played glances a stationary stone. This light touch causes the played stone to change direction slightly. There’s no definitive theory as to its origin in this case.
8. “Getting on my wick“
Wick has a vulgar meaning that is very likely related to a piece of Cockney rhyming slang. It’s a reference to Hampton Wick (the name of a district in South West London), which would often be shortened to “Hampton” as a euphemism for “penis,” due to the rhyme of wick and prick. So, the phrase “you’re getting on my wick” (which I heard frequently from my long-suffering mum when my sister and I would bicker with one another as kids) is similar to the equivalent British phrase “getting on your tits.”
And the rudeness doesn’t stop there...
9. “To dip one’s wick”
The phrase “to dip his wick” is a crude metaphor for a man having sex. This figurative term is probably drawn from the phallic imagery implied by the first example mentioned in this piece (candles are made by dipping wicks in hot wax), as well as by association with the cockney rhyming slang that gives us “getting on one’s wick” above.
And so we’ve come full circle.
Does anyone else know a final 10th meaning of wick so I can get into double figures?!
For more writing on word meanings, please visit my blog.
