Etymology
ME
fiken ‘to move quickly (etc.)’ resembles a number of formally similar (and perhaps related) Gmc words incl. the OIcel v.
fíkjask ‘to desire eagerly’, the related adv.
fíkjum ‘eagerly, very’ and the poetic adj.
fíkinn ‘greedy, eager’ (generally connected to Sw
fika, older
fikja, ‘to move quickly, be restless or eager’, Norw
fika, Dan
fige in a similar sense; Icel
fika (19c.) ‘to climb up slowly’), and a set of Ger and Du verbs (and their numerous ideophonic variants) which describe short, quick and/or violent motion (e.g. OHG
ficchon ‘to rub'). The ulterior etymology of a PGmc
*fik-,
*fīk- in this sense area is obscure, but it is frequently linked to OE
fācian ‘to desire to obtain, ?to get to, reach’ (see
DOE), supposedly a formation on a different Ablaut grade (see Mag.). A handful of OE derivatives on a stem
fic- ‘deceit' are usually referred to the root of OE
fācen ‘deceit, guile, treachery (etc.)’ (cp. OIcel
feikn etc.) and thus kept distinct from OIcel
fíkjask and related verbs (e.g. Pokorny I.795,
AEW, Mag.). However, an underlying sense ‘to make small, violent movements’ (so Falk-Torp and Torp NnEO) could be behind all of these words and might have extended metaphorically to mean ‘deceive’ (e.g. Liberman 2008: 79) and ME
fiken ‘to move quickly (etc.)’ could therefore represent a survival of OE
fician in an unattested concrete sense (so
MED, TGD) (and note the existence of ideophonic variants: see e.g.
OED s.vv. fitch v.1, fidge v.). Nevertheless the similarity of the sense ‘to move quickly, be restless or eager’ attested for some of the Scandinavian verbs has led some scholars to suggest the possibility of ON input (thus Bj.,
OED, Kullnick 1902: 15, Emerson 1922: 406, GDS, Thorson 60).
PGmc Ancestor
*fik-, *fīk-
Proposed ON Etymon (OIcel representative)
fíkjask ‘to desire eagerly’, fíkjum (adv.) ‘eagerly, very’, fíkinn (adj.) ‘greedy, eager’
(ONP fíkjum (adv.))
Other Scandinavian Reflexes
Icel fíkjast, Norw fik, Sw fik; Icel, Norw fika, Dan fige, Sw fikja, fika; Far ny-fiken, Icel fíkinn, Norw fiken, Dan ny-figen, Sw dial fiken
OE Cognate
fician ‘to flatter, fawn’; cp. gefic ‘deceit’, befician ‘to deceive’, ficung ‘deceit, fraud, trickery’, ficol ‘deceitful, cunning’
Phonological and morphological markers
Summary category
CC3a