Sc. Also 6 trake, 6–9 traick. [Goes app. with TRAIK sb., q.v.: origin uncertain, but cf. Sw. tråka to rub on, to tug, to drudge, Norw. traaka to struggle against, show disinclination to toil or work; to go with difficulty, go slowly, traakes to become tired or exhausted, traakall adj. unwilling, reluctant.]
1. intr. To decline in health, or be in declining health; to become worn out; to break down, collapse. Now rare.
1508. [see TRAIKED].
1535. Stewart, Cron. Scot. (Rolls), I. 423. Ane seiknes that is into the heid, Without the soner that it get remeid,… The memberis all will rycht sone tyne and traik.
1639. R. Baillie, Lett., 28 Sept. Many of them died; and … the most part of all who remained traicked pitifullie.
1737. Ramsay, Sc. Prov., xiv. 118. He’s the gear that winna traik.
1834. Carlyle, in Froude, 1st Forty Years (1882), II. xviii. 451. But for the kindness and helpfulness shown me on all hands I must have traiked.
2. To go idly about, to stroll; to wander, stray, go astray; to traik after, to come after, follow.
1818. Scott, Hrt. Midl., xxiv. There isna a hussy … that you can bring within your doors, but there will be chields … coming traiking after them for their destruction.
1825. Jamieson, Traik.… To wander so as to lose one’s self; chiefly applied to the young of poultry, Dumfr. Hence the … phrase, ‘He’s nane o’ the birds that traik,’ he can take good care of himself.
1842. J. Aiton, Domest. Econ. (1857), 264. In half dozens they are tearing the thatch off the stacks, or they are ‘traicking’ through the corn-fields, each of them destroying with its feet quite as much as a sheep would eat.
Hence Traiked, traikit ppl. a. Sc. a. wasted; worn out; b. of sheep or cattle: that has died a natural death; cf. BRAXY; Traiking vbl. sb., strolling, wandering, ‘walking out.’
1508. Dunbar, Flyting, 118. Bot now, in winter, for purteth thow art traikit.
1562. in Keith, Hist. Scot. (1734), App. 96. Be the tempestuous Stormis of the Winteris past, the hale Gudis wer sa trakit, smorit and deid, that [etc.].
1585–6. J. Melville, Lett., in Wodrow Soc. Misc. (1844), I. 439. Mr. Andrew has been a sore traicked man since he came home.
a. 1598. Rollock, Serm., Wks. 1849, I. 437. The trakedest bodies that livis, even as gif they wer drawin throw an myre.
c. 1680. [F. Sempill], Banishm. Poverty, 93. I call’d him Turk and traiked tyke.
1825. Jamieson, Trakit.… 1. Sore fatigued. 2. Wasted, brought into a declining state by being overdriven, starved, or exposed to the inclemency of the weather.
1828. J. Struthers, Hist. Scot., II. 625. To butcher-meat, except … drowned calves and traiked sheep … they were total strangers.
1894. Crockett, Raiders, xxxv. His night-hawk traikings and trokings with a dozen hizzies.
