rayke

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)

Etymology

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/ &lt; PGmc */ai/

[ON loss of initial */w/- before /r/] (may not be applicable)

Summary category

A1c

Attestation

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.

Bibliography

MED raiken (v.) , OED3 raik (v.) , HTOED , EDD rake (v.3 and sb.3), Dance rayke, Bj. 48, de Vries reika (1), Mag. reika (1), Heid. wraikwa-