Sc. Also 7–9 fyke. [f. FIKE v.1]
† 1. Something that causes one to fidget; esp. the itch. Also, the fikes = the fidgets. Obs.
In first quot. possibly a different word; ? the piles. Cf. FICUS.
a. 1605. Montgomerie, Flyting, 313.
| The frencie, the fluxes, the fyke and the felt, | |
| The feavers, the fearcie, with the speinȝie flees, | |
| The doit and the dismail, indifferentlie delt. |
1736. Ramsay, Sc. Prov. (1750), xliii. 87. Ye have gotten the fikes in your arse or a waft clew.
a. 1758. Ramsay, Address of Thanks, xxii.
| A Briton free thinks as he likes, | |
| And, as his fancy takes the fykes, | |
| May preach or print his notions. |
17[?]. Lady Dalrymple, in Lives of Lindsays (1849), II. 322. Your mother’s cold was another of my fykes.
b. A restless movement.
1790. Macaulay, To Cheerfulness, Poems, 129.
| For gang to ony place we like, | |
| Wade thro’ the loch, or jump the dyke, | |
| An’ wearied be as ony tyke | |
| Whan night comes on, | |
| No ane gi’es e’er a fidge or fyke, | |
| Or yet a moan. |
2. Anxiety about what is trifling, fuss, trouble.
1719. Hamilton, 2nd Epist. to Ramsay, i.
| When I receiv’d thy kind epistle | |
| It made me dance, and sing, and whistle; | |
| O sic a fike and sic a fistle | |
| I had about it! |
1790. Burns, Tam o’ Shanter, 193.
| As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke, | |
| When plundering herds assail their byke. |
1808. E. Hamilton, Cottagers of Glenburnie, 169. I dinna fash wi’ sae mony fykes.
1827. Scott, Surg. Dau., ii. Have I been taking a’ this fyke about a Jew?
3. Dalliance, flirtation.
1808–80. Jamieson, ‘He held a great fike wi’ her.’
1810. J. Cock, Simple Strains, 144 (Jam.). They had a fyk thegither.
