wick

«wick» in Mova's school dictionary: the string in the middle of a candle or the strip in an… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 2 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a wick, wicks); verb (wick away — of fabrics)

meaning for a pupil

1) A wick is the string in the middle of a candle or the strip in an oil lamp that you light; it soaks up melted wax or oil to keep the flame burning. tree →

2) To wick (away) is to draw water or sweat away, as some sports clothes do. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science lessons, a candle wick shows capillary action: liquid wax climbs up the wick to the flame. In safety, a long wick makes a big flame; candles must not be left unattended. In British slang, «to get on someone's wick» means to annoy them. Phrases: «trim the wick», «candle wick», «get on someone's wick».

examples

• Light the wick carefully with a long match. tree →
• Melted wax climbs up the wick and feeds the flame. tree →
• Trim the wick so the flame is small. tree →
• The candle went out when the wick burned down. tree →
• These sports socks wick sweat away from your feet. tree →
• In a science test, water climbed up a paper wick. tree →

note

Countable noun, plural wicks. Not the same as «wicked» (very bad, or in slang very good). In science, the wick works by capillary action.

In the corpora

• Trick birthday candles have a metal powder, magnesium, in the wick that catches fire again from the glowing wick.
• Some party candles have metal salts in the wick, so their flames burn green, red or lilac.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «wick» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.