v. (wk.)
Gaw past rayked; Pe, Cl pres. ptcp. raykande; Cl pres 3 sg raykeʒ; Pat pres. 3 sg. raykes, imper. sg. rayke; Erk past 3 sg. rayked; WA pres. 3 sg. raikis
'to wander, depart, go, advance; (pres. ptcp.) flowing, rolling on'
(Modern English raik)cp. OIcel reika ‘to wander, take a walk, swagger’ as if < a PGmc *raikō(j)an-, and further OIcel reik ‘parting of the hair’. The ulterior etymology is uncertain (see further de Vries and Mag.). A connection with PGmc *raikjan- (OE rǣcan, OHG reichen, etc. ‘to reach’, for which see AEW s.v. rǣcan, Orel s.v. *raikjanan) is superficially attractive but the evidence of IE cognates does not support a PGmc *raik- ‘go’ on which *raikj- could be a causative formation. The best alternative is probably Go wráiqs, OFris wrāk ‘crooked’ (and perhaps Sw dial wrēk ‘annoying person’, OE wrāxlian ‘to wrestle’), supposing a PGmc *wraik- about whose origin there is also some debate.
PGmc Ancestor
*raikō(j)an-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
reika ‘to wander, take a walk, swagger’
(ONP reika (vb.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Far reika, Icel reika, Norw reika
OE Cognate
Phonological and morphological markers
ON /ei/ < PGmc */ai/
[ON loss of initial */w/- before /r/] (may not be applicable)
Summary category
A1c
In ME from as early as the T MS of AW, and mostly N, E and alliterative. In MnE dial usage N/EM as far south as Nhp., War., and Hnt.
Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus
Gaw 1076, 1727, 1735; Pe 112; Cl 382, 465, 671; Pat 65, 89; Erk 139; WA 5284, 5555
Gaw 1727 out rayked taken by Emerson (1922: 396) as a prefixed verb meaning ‘wandered out, swerved out’, but has had no followers. For early emendations of Gaw 2337 MS rykande to *raykande see rykande.