quick

1) Short for quick-grass, a term used for weeds, especially couch grass.

As ‘quicks’, or its dialect form ‘whicks’, it remained in use among farmers for whom the collection [samming up] and burning of weeds was a task that went hand in hand with ploughing: 1740 some quicks or rubbish burning in the fields, Morley. Its use as a verb is also on record in farmers’ diaries: 1796 Quicking in Rush Fields, Sessay

1809 I was Emplyd in Breaking Clod and Whicking in the afternoon, Ovenden.

spellings whicking
dates 1740 1796 1809

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