Something “Glicked” this way comes (to a theater near you)

Last year we had Barbenheimer. This year … “Glicked”?

No, you’re not glitching. That word is just a bit icky. And it’s not the past tense or participle of some verb glick.  

This Friday, November 22, 2024, sees the wide release of two greatly anticipated—or at least greatly marketed—films, Gladiator II and Wicked.

Inspired by the summer sensation successfully christened Barbenheimer, or the release of the blockbusters Barbie and Oppenheimer on the same day, July 21, 2023, some commentators have been trying—emphasis on trying—to dub the Gladiator and Wicked event as “Glicked.”

Two syllables. Glickèd. As pronounced to rhyme with wicked. Not as we would expect—in the magic that is our deep, automatic knowledge of how English works—to rhyme with flicked.

“Wickiator”? “Gladiated”? “Wadiator”? “Glackèd”? Fine. “Glicked.” At least this clumsy portmanteau is a diversion from our pending … kakistocracy (“government by the worst,” with Greek kakistos, “worst,” being the superlative of kakos, “bad,” possibly related to caca.)

Why we pronounce the -ed in wicked—or accursed, crooked, dogged, jagged, rugged, and a handful more—as its own syllable, whereas we don’t in similar formations like looked or begged, is a bit of a quirk of English.

In short, we always used to pronounce that syllable, but some words escaped English’s phonetic squishing of the -ed into a d or t sound onto the preceding consonant, except when itself a d or t sound. (English. You know, sometimes, I just … )

In long, I point you to this terrific video, presented by the one and only Grammar Girl, as researched and written by educator and language expert Neal Whitman. (And oh, the word naked has no etymological –ed about it; it comes from Old English nacod, meaning the same.)

It’s time for the show. Where do the words blended into “Glicked,” gladiator and wicked, come from?

Gladiator etymology

First recorded in the 1400s, gladiator comes directly from the Latin gladiātor, from gladius, meaning “sword.” By metaphorical extension, gladius could also mean “murder, death.” 

Nothing glad about that.

The further roots of gladius are unclear, but it might be Celtic, passing into Latin from Gaulish. Gaulish was the language of the Gauls, who occupied modern-day France and surrounding areas—and whom Julius Caesar notoriously conquered in the mid-first century BCE. 

A possible cognate to the Latin gladius is the Welsh cleddyf, “sword.” The name for this Welsh blade is related to the Scottish claidheamh mór, meaning “great sword” and source of claymore, a kind of two-edged sword once wielded by Scottish Highlanders. 

Watch out, gladiators.

At more ancient root may be the hypothetical Proto-Indo-European *kel-, “to strike, cut.”

Wicked etymology

The history of wicked is, aptly, more bedeviling. 

Wicked appears in Middle English, evidenced by the 1200s. It’s possibly based on an adjective wick, recorded slightly earlier but meaning the same, and -ed, used as an adjective-forming suffix. Attested in the same period, wretched was formed in this way, from wretch, which originally referred to “an exile.” 

Now, this wick is a little tricky. It’s not certain, but it’s thought to be a transferred use of the Old English wicca, a “wizard, sorcerer,” whose feminine form was wicce—which both became witch. In Old English, wicca and wicce would have sounded like witch followed by an ah or uh sound, respectively, the stressed portion of which pronunciation is preserved and reflected in the spelling of witch to this day. 

Early on, witch didn’t discriminate between men and women. The magic these sorcerers were believed to practice wasn’t exclusively evil either. So, it’s for this reason that some doubt any connection between wicked and witch at all. 

The association of witch with dark arts—and with women, starting in the 1400s—is complex. But we can attribute the change to Christianity. And, well, men. 

The deeper roots of witch are more obscure than their magic. Scholars have assayed many origins. Prominent among them are: 

• A Germanic base meaning “sacred, holy,” perhaps related to an obsolete verb wiele, “to carry out a spell, divine, practice magic”
• A proposed Proto-Germanic word for “necromancer,” related to the English wake, with a sense of “raising the dead”
• The English wit, originally meaning “to know” and, ultimately, connected to wizard (literally, “one who is wise”)

Aftermash

English does have some precedent for the word glick. It’s as a variant form, evidenced in the 1600s, of two, unrelated words, gleek.

The first refers to a once-popular, three-player, trick-taking card game, called gleek, involving forty-four cards. Its name comes from the Old French glic, with further origins uncertain.

In the game, a three-of-a-kind is called a gleek. A four-of-a-kind? A mournival. That word—get this—is believed to come from the French mornifle, “a slap in the face,” in allusion to the effect a good hand has on one’s opponent. (Credit to the Oxford English Dictionary, by the way, for all of this lost “glickage.”)

The second gleek is an obsolete word for a “gibe” or “jest” or, rarely, “a flirtatious look.” The origin of this word is obscure. It may well be an example of sound symbolism, with that gl- cluster, called a phonestheme, evoking a quick lightness of play (cf. glance, glimmer, glint, glisten, er, glick).

And Glick, of course, is a surname, based on the German surname Glück and word for “happiness, joy, luck.” The English luck is indeed connected, borrowed into English from a Dutch or neighboring form of German that long ago lost an initial ge- but that survives in the German Glück and Dutch geluk today.

G’luck to “Glicked”!