Forms: (1 ticia), 5 teke; 4–7 tyke, 6 tycke, 6–7 tike, ticke, 7 tique, 7– tick. [Ticia (assumed to be an error for *tiica = tīca, or *ticca) appears once, in the Erfurt Gloss. a. 800, after which the word is known only in 15th c. as teke, from 14th to 17th c. as tȳke, and from 16th c. as tycke, tick. Teke agrees with MD., MLG. tēke, Du. teek, also with the LG. forms teke, täke. Tȳke, tīke agree with suggested OE. *tīca, with LG. tieke, tiek, whence Du. tiek, and mod.EFris. tike, tîk, applied to beetles generally (Dornkaat-Koolman). Thence also prob. F. tique (1464 in Godef.). The later tycke, tick may be shortened from teke: cf. rick, sick, wick. If = OE. *ticca with OTeut. cc, it would correspond to Ger. zecke (whence It. zecca):—*tikkon m. or *tikkôn f.; if = *tĭca, to MHG. zeche. The various forms imply WGer. *tîka-, *tika-, *tikka-. Ulterior etymology uncertain: see Kluge and Franck; also Falk and Torp s.v. Tæge.]
1. The common name for several kinds of mites or acarids, esp. of the genus Ixōdes or family Ixōdidæ, which infest the hair or fur of various animals, as dogs, cattle, etc., and attach themselves to the skin as temporary parasites; also for the similarly parasitic dipterous insects of the families Hippoboscidæ (bird-ticks, horse-ticks, sheep-ticks) and Nycteribiidæ (bat-ticks).
a. 800. Erfort Gloss. (O.E.T.), 1130. Ricinus, ticia sax.
1300–25. Song agst. Retainers, 20, in Pol. Songs (Camden), 238. To shome he huem shadde, To fles ant to fleye, To tyke ant to tadde.
c. 1440. Jacob’s Well, xxi. 146. A waterleche or a tyke hath neuere ynow, tyl it brestyth.
14[?]. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 565/47. Ascarida, a Teke.
1523. Fitzherb., Husb., § 135. There is ieopardy both for calues, foles and coltes, for tyckes, or for beynge lousye.
1575. Turberv., Venerie, 229. A receipt to kill fleas, lice, tykes, and other vermin on dogs.
1603. Holland, Plutarch’s Mor., 393. The foxe in Æsops fables would not suffer the urchin to take off the tiques that were setled upon her bodie.
1658. Rowland, Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 934. The Tick or Sheep-fly.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, II. 198/2. The Tike is another kind of Louse,… a Companion for Dogs, Sheep, and Cattle.
1748. Anson’s Voy., III. ii. 314. An insect called a tick, which, though principally attached to the cattle, would yet frequently fasten upon our limbs and bodies.
1839. Darwin, Voy. Nat., i. (1879), 10. A tick which must have come here as a parasite on the birds.
1875. Health Reformer, 201/2.
| Swollen, tight as a tick, | |
| And as hard as a stick. |
1882. Garden, 14 Jan., 20/1. The horses … were covered with large blue ticks.
† b. Applied in contempt or insult to a person.
1631. A. Wilson, Swisser, II. i. Yee nigling Ticks you.
2. Short for tick-bean: see 3.
1765. Treat. Dom. Pigeons, 28. Horse-beans are the next food…. There is a sort which they call French ticks, which are good food.
1850–2. Morton, Cycl. Agric. (1855), I. 200/2. There are several other varieties of the Tick bean in cultivation, known locally fas] Harrow Tick, Flat Tick, Essex Tick, and French Tick.
3. attrib. and Comb., as tick genus, plague; tick-bean, a small-seeded variety of the common bean, Vicia Faba, so called from the resemblance of the seed to a dog-tick; tick-bird, a bird that feeds on the ticks that infest large quadrupeds, as the African genus Buphaga (rhinoceros-bird) and the S. American and W. Indian Crotophaga ani; tick-eater = tick-bird; tick fever, a fever (in men or cattle) caused by the bites of ticks; tick-fly, any of the dipterous insects called ticks (see 1); tick-seed, name for various plants having seeds resembling ticks, as † the castor-oil plant, Ricinus communis (obs.), and the genera Coreopsis and Corispermum; also = tick-trefoil; tick-seeded a., having seeds resembling ticks; tick-spider, name for a jumping spider; † tick spot, a marking as if bitten by a tick: cf. TICKED a.; tick-trefoil, a plant of the genus Desmodium, so named from the joints of the pods adhering like ticks to the fur of animals; tick-weed, † (a) the castor-oil plant (see tick-seed above); (b) the American pennyroyal, Hedeoma pulegioides.
1763. Museum Rust. (ed. 2), I. 187. The methods followed … in sowing horse beans, or *tick-beans, as we sometimes call them.
1805. Trans. Soc. Arts, XXIII. 36. One stalk of the tick bean had 70 pods.
1863. W. C. Baldwin, Afr. Hunting, ix. 389. I was much amused by watching the *tick birds trying to alarm an old white rhinoceros, that we were approaching from under the wind.
1871. Kingsley, At Last, v. The black ‘tick birds’ (Crotophaga Ani), a little larger than our English blackbird.
1896. Baden-Powell, Matabele Campaign, xviii. 133. Colenbrander … they have called the ‘tick-bird’—a bird which in this country always accompanies a bull, to relieve him of superfluous ticks.
1903. Daily Chron., 11 June, 3/3. The gulls,… like the small *tick eaters which live on African game, delighted in warning their friends of our approach.
1901. Lancet, 23 Nov., 1432/1. *Tick fever is widely distributed throughout the world…. It is communicated to cattle by insects known as ‘ticks.’
1658. Rowland, Moufet’s Theat. Ins., 949. Those things that kill and drive away the *Tyke-flies called Ricini, for the most part kill and drive away the Dog-flies.
1889. Cent. Dict., s.v. Hippobosca, H. equina is a winged tick fly of the horse.
1822–34. Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), I. 263. Linnæus … laboured … to prove, that dysentery is the effect of a … larva … belonging to the acarus or *tick genus.
1896. Daily News, 23 Nov., 8/5. The *tick-plague in Queensland … is not so terrible a scourge as the South African rinderpest.
1562. Turner, Herbal, II. 116. Ricinus is called … in English palma Christi, or *ticke sede…. The sede … when the huske is of … looketh very lyke a dogge louse which is called a tyke.
1760. J. Lee, Introd. Bot., App. 329. Tickseed, Corispermum.
1860. Worcester, Tickseed sunflower, a smooth-branched herb, having golden-yellow, showy rays; Coreopsis trichosperma. Gray.
1786. Abercrombie, Arrangem., in Gard. Assist., 54/2. Coreopsis, *tick-seeded sunflower.
1721. Bradley, Philos. Acc. Wks. Nat., 135. The Jumper or *Tick Spider.
1704. Lond. Gaz., No. 4079/4. A … Greyhound … with some white *Tick Spots.
1857. Gray, First Less. Bot. (1866), 127. A one-celled ovary sometimes becomes several-celled … by the formation of false partitions … as in the jointed pod of the Sea-Rocket and the *Tick-Trefoil.
1563. Hyll, Art Garden. (1593), 32. The hearbe named *Tick-weed, otherwise in Latin Palma Christi.
1884. Miller, Plant-n., Tick-weed, Hedeoma pulegioides.
