[Echoic.
Cf. 1575. Gamm. Gurton, IV. ii. Till I made her olde wesen to answere again, kecke.]
1. intr. To make a sound as if about to vomit; to retch; to feel an inclination to vomit; hence to keck at, to reject (food, medicine, etc.) with loathing. Also fig. expressing strong dislike or disgust.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 148. Their pouder is … ordained for them who … are ready to keck and heaue at euery little thing.
1642. Milton, Apol. Smect., Introd. Wks. (1851), 265. The worser stuffe she strongly keeps in her stomach, but the better she is ever kecking at, and is queasie.
1681. Temple, Mem., III. Wks. 1731, I. 335. I had propos’d Lord Hallifax as one of the Lords, whom the King had indeed keck’d at … more than any of the rest.
1710. Swift, Lett. (1767), III. 61. I have taken a whole box of pills, and keckt at them every night.
1821. Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. Imperf. Symp. If they can sit with us at table, why do they keck at our cookery?
b. = KINK v.1 (Cf. Norw. kikje.)
1721. Bailey, To Keck, Keckle, to make a Noise in the Throat, by reason of Difficulty in Breathing.
2. intr. Of a bird: To utter a sound like keck.
1844. in Whitelaw, Bk. Scot. Song (1875), 347/2. Our grey clocking hen she gaed Kecking her lone.
1878. P. S. Robinson, Indian Garden, I. Green Parrots (ed. 2), 22. The hawk now and again affords healthy excitement to a score of crows who keck at him as he flaps unconcerned on his wide, ragged wings through the air.
Hence Kecking vbl. sb.
1709. [E. Ward], Rambling Fuddle-Caps, 12. B’ing ready to spew, I suppose, by his kecking.
1751. Stack, in Phil. Trans., XLVII. 275. When this medicine produces nothing more than keckings at stomach.
