Etymology

The ME form of the v. with short /i/ (as opposed to instances which perhaps have long /i:/, which are straightforwardly < OE blīcan ‘to shine; glitter; be radiant’;  thus possibly Gaw 305 blycande) has sometimes been explained as derived from ON, cp. OIcel blika ‘to glisten, glint, shine’ (so Knigge 77, Kullnick 14). But most derive it from OE *blician with /i/, i.e. a derivation on the zero-grade of the root in the str. I v. blīcan, which is a plausible native development (and cp. the cognates in MDu and Ger blicken ‘to glance’, Du blikken ‘to twinkle, turn pale’). The same grade is met with in (unambiguously early) nominal form in OE -blice, on which the wk. 2 verb known from later texts could easily be formed.

PGmc Ancestor

*blikōjan-

Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)

blika ‘to glisten, glint, shine’
(ONP blika (2) (vb.))

Other Scandinavian Reflexes

Far blika, Icel blika, Norw blika, OSw blika, Sw bläcka

OE Cognate

cp. blice (n.) ‘exposure’, ofer-blice ‘surface’

Phonological and morphological markers

Summary category

CCC1a

Attestation

See DOE on late OE blic- . There are a few occurrences in ME of forms apparently with short /i/ (though note that MED does not attempt to distinguish these from variants which (may) have a long vowel), which are mainly early, and (aside from the Gaw group) occur predominantly in the SWM (esp. the AB group and LB; see further Dance 2003: 389).

Occurrences in the Gersum Corpus

Gaw 305, 429, 2485; Cl 603

Gaw 305 blycande may conceivably represent a form with long /i:/.

Bibliography

MED blīken (v.) , OED blik, blike (v.) , HTOED , Dance blykke, de Vries blika (2), Mag. blik, Bj-L blikk, Orel *ƀlikōjanan, AEW blician, DOE blican, blician