Obs. exc. dial. Also 5 chykkyn, 7 check. [Onomatopœic. Closely related to prec., but denoting the sudden action of breaking which the sound there expressed often accompanies; cf. CHIP in same sense.]
1. intr. To sprout, shoot, germinate; to ‘chip.’ Hence Chicking vbl. sb.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 74. Chykkyn, as corne, or spyryn, or sp[r]owtyn’, pulilo. Ibid. Chickyng, or spyryng or corne,… germinacio, palulatus, pululacio.
1787. W. Marshall, Norfolk Gloss. (E. D. S.), Chicked, sprouted, begun to vegetate, as seed in the ground.
1830. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Chick, to begin to germinate; as seeds in the earth, leaves from their buds, or barley on the couch in the malthouse.
2. To crack or burst as a seed does in sprouting; to split; to chap. Also trans.
1641. Best, Farm. Bks. (1856), 15. Soone as they are peel’d we carry them into some house because the sunne shoulde not checke and rive them [willows]. Ibid., 104. That paste that is made of barley meale, cracketh and checketh.
1658. Evelyn, Fr. Gard. (1675), 246. Put a little [Onion seed] into a Porrenger of water, and let it infuse upon the hot embers, and if it be good it will begin to Check and Speer.
1830. Forby, Voc. E. Anglia, Chick, to crack, chap, chop, as the skin in frosty weather.
