An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/Annotated/meckern

by Friedrich Kluge

meckern, verb, ‘to bleat,’ Modern High German only; Middle High German has an equivalent word by a different derivation from the same stem, mëchzen, ‘to bleat,’ allied to Middle High German mëcke, masculine, ‘he-goat,’ as a nickname (Gothic *m(illegible text)gga, ‘he-goat,’ is wanting). Compare the pre-Teutonic root mak in Greek μηκάομας, ‘to bleat.’