wick
Pluralwicks
Pluralwicks
- 1A braid or bundle of fiber, now usually cotton, that draws melted wax, oil or other fuel up to the flame of a candle, lamp or heater; also, the material it is made from.
If the wick is left too long, the candle burns with a tall, sooty flame.
He turned up the wick on the kerosene heater until the cabin grew warm.
UsageCommon pairings: light the wick, trim the wick, turn up the wick on a lamp.
Note
Spenser spells it weeke, thrown away once the oil is spent and the light goes out. Drawing liquid along a strand proved so useful that the word spread to anything that soaks liquid along and to the verb for drawing moisture.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Spenser uses the spelling weeke in a passage describing its disposal after the oil is exhausted and the light extinguished. internetshakespeare.uvic.ca
- The broader liquid-conveying noun sense is an extension of the candle sense, and the moisture-drawing verb derives from the noun. en.wiktionary.org
- 2Of a fabric or other porous material, to draw liquid along or away by capillary action (fabrics that wick sweat from the skin); of a liquid, to move through such a material.
Hikers who sweat heavily should choose fabrics that wick.
The old cotton cord no longer wicks properly, so the lamp keeps going out.
UsageOften wick sweat away or wick moisture from the skin; such fabric is called moisture-wicking.
- 3Any piece of porous material that carries liquid by capillary action; in medicine, a strip of gauze placed in a wound or similar opening to absorb fluids.
The surgeon left a gauze wick in the abscess so that it could keep draining.
Self-watering pots use a fabric wick to draw water up from a reservoir into the soil.
Note
In wound care a wick holds a wound open rather than closing it: a loose strip of gauze is tucked into a wound or abscess so that fluid keeps draining out instead of collecting inside. The same capillary pull lifts melted wax up a candle wick, which is why the word serves a surgeon and a self-watering flowerpot alike.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts
- Wound packing keeps the opening from closing prematurely, allowing continued drainage and preventing fluid from collecting again. hey.nhs.uk
- A strip of gauze can be placed loosely inside an abscess cavity to maintain drainage. saem.org
- Capillary action carries melted wax upward through a candle wick. en.wikipedia.org
- Self-watering planters also use wicks to transport water by capillary action. scienceworld.ca
- 4A hamlet or village, or sometimes a town.
And by report, there vvere eight thouſand Gaules there ſlaine: the reſt abandoned the vvarre, and ſlipt every one into their ovvne vvickes and villages.
1600, Livy, “[Book XXXIIII]”Note
A separate word from the candle wick, going back to Old English wīc, a dwelling place or camp. Philemon Holland's translation of Livy sends the surviving Gauls home to their own wicks and villages.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The settlement word has a different origin from the candle word and descends from Old English wīc. en.wiktionary.org
- Old English wīc could mean a dwelling place or camp. en.wiktionary.org
- Philemon Holland's translation of Livy describes the surviving Gauls returning to their own wicks and villages. en.wiktionary.org
Less common meanings
- 5A slang euphemism for the penis, often in the phrase dip one's wick.
On shore leave, half the crew seemed to think of nothing but dipping their wicks.
He climbed out of the icy lake and swore his wick had shrunk to nothing.
Note
Its usual home is the phrase dip one's wick, a crude, jokey way of saying that a man has sex; Brian Aldiss uses it in A Soldier Erect. The wick may come from rhyming slang, Hampton Wick for prick.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Dip one's wick means that a man has sex. en.wiktionary.org
- Brian Aldiss uses the expression in A Soldier Erect. en.wiktionary.org
- 6An enclosed plot of land; a close.
Note
Long out of use, this meaning grew from the Middle English word that could name a building or a piece of land, probably enclosed, where work was done; here only the enclosed land remains. It is the same word as the old word for a village, here applied to a single close rather than a whole settlement.
- 7Life, or the quality of being lively.
Note
The noun that goes with the adjective for alive, matching quick as a noun in cut to the quick, where it means the living flesh. It named life itself, or the liveliness that shows it.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- The noun belongs with the adjective meaning alive and is related to quick. en.wiktionary.org
- Quick means sensitive living flesh in cut to the quick. en.wiktionary.org
- 8An inlet of water into the land, such as a creek or a small bay.
- 9A farm, especially one whose main business is dairying.
Wick Farm—almost every village has its outlying ‘wick’—stands alone in the fields.
1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], “The Farmhouse—Traditions—Hunting Pictures—The Farmer’s Year—Sport—The Auction Festival—A Summer’s Day—Beauty… - 10In bowls or curling, a shot in which the delivered bowl or stone touches a stationary one just enough to change its own direction; a cannon.
- 11In bowls or curling, to play a bowl or stone so that it strikes a stationary one just enough to glance off in a new direction; to cannon.
- 12Synonym of port: in bowls or curling, a gap among other bowls or stones that a thrown one can just slip through.
- 13A basket woven from wickers, the flexible twigs of willow and similar plants; a creel.
- 14Wickers taken together, the flexible twigs used for weaving, or the wickerwork made from them.
- 15The living base or root part of a plant, where growth goes on, especially a piece of weed root left alive in the soil after careless digging.
- 16A maggot.
- 17Alive or living; also, full of life and active.
- 18Any angle or corner, most often that of the eye or the mouth.
She considered him. A fiery droplet in the wick of her mouth considered him.
1969, Vladimir Nabokov, Ada - 19Short for wick-tooth: a canine tooth, one of the pointed teeth between the front teeth and the premolars. Dialectal, chiefly in England.
- 20A grove of trees; also, a hollow in the land.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Old English wēoce ("wick") goes back to Proto-West Germanic *weukā, meaning "wick" or "flax bundle," which may come from the Proto-Indo-European root *weg- ("to weave"), and it became Middle English wek, weke, wicke. Dutch wiek and German Wieche are comparable. Some have suggested that the slang meaning "penis" comes from Hampton Wick, rhyming slang for prick. The verb comes from the noun.
From Middle English wik, wike (“dwelling, home; town; village”), from Old English wīc (“dwelling place, camp, town, village”), probably from Latin vīcus (“street, village”) and/or Proto-West Germanic *wīhs (“village, settlement”), both ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *weyḱ- (“to settle”). It is a doublet of vicus and -wich.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 7 facts
- Wick derives from Middle English wik, wike, with the stated dwelling and settlement meanings. en.wiktionary.org
- The Middle English word derives from Old English wīc, with the stated meanings. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin vīcus and Proto-West Germanic *wīhs are proposed sources of Old English wīc. en.wiktionary.org
- Latin vīcus meant street and village. en.wiktionary.org
- Proto-West Germanic *wīhs is reconstructed with the meanings village and settlement. en.wiktionary.org
- Both proposed sources ultimately derive from Proto-Indo-European *weyḱ-, meaning to settle. en.wiktionary.org
- Wick is a doublet of vicus and -wich. en.wiktionary.org
A variant of quick.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Wick is a variant of quick. en.wiktionary.org