An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/Docht

by Friedrich Kluge

Docht, masculine, ‘wick.’ The strictly Modern High German form should be dacht, which is still dialectal, as well as the variant tacht, with the t from þ, as in tausend, Middle High German and Old High German tâkt, masculine, neuter; compare Old Icelandic þáttr, ‘thread, wick.’ A Teutonic root, þêh, þêg, still appears in Swiss dœgel, ‘wick,’ Bavarian dâhen, Alsatian dôche, ‘wick.’ In the non-Teutonic languages no primitively root têk has as yet been found. For another Old Teutonic term for Docht, see under Wieche.