Re: Wicked!

LFS wrote:
John Briggs wrote:
LFS wrote:

Phil C. wrote:


The Lincolnshire Lay Subsidy of 1334 includes one Everard le Wikked
living in Stamford (Bredecroft).
<http://www.le.ac.uk/english/pot/lincbrad.html>

Cool name, huh? My dictionaries suggest that "wicked" is Middle
English perhaps from OE Inca, a wizard. But I wonder what nuances
the word carried in the C14th. Anyone got an OED handy?

Here's some of the OED entry - can't see anything about wizards,
though. Everard may just have been a bad lot.


You've just given the different meanings and illustrative quotations
- what about the etymology?


Sorry, it got left out - still no wizards, though:

[ME. (13th cent.) wicked, wikked, app. f. WICK a., as wretched from
wrecche WRETCH. The later wiked appears to be merely a graphic
variant; forms with the lowered stem-vowel are of both types, wekked,
weked.]

There is of course, 'wicca (very fashionable these days) and 'witch'.
The relation between these I could not say but I suspect the 'wicca' and
'wicked' must have something to do with each other.


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