candle-wick

candle-wick (countable and uncountable, plural candle-wicks)

1. Archaic form of candlewick.
   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe:

     Accordingly, the next day I came provided with six large candles of my own making (for I made very good candles now of goat’s tallow, but was hard set for candle-wick, using sometimes rags or rope-yarn, and sometimes the dried rind of a weed like nettles); and going into this low place I was obliged to creep upon all-fours as I have said, almost ten yards—which, by the way, I thought was a venture bold enough, considering that I knew not how far it might go, nor what was beyond it.

   • 1843, William Newton, The London journal of arts and sciences (and repertory of patent inventions) [afterw.] Newton's London journal of arts and sciences, page 112:

     To Nathaniel Card, of Manchester, in the County of Lancaster, candle-wick manufacturer, for certain improvements in the manufacture of candle-wick, and in machinery or apparatus for producing such manufacture. — [Sealed 14th January, 1843.] These improvements, in the manufacture of candle-wick, apply particularly to the common or well-known plaited or platted wick, used in candles, for supporting combustion, and consist, Firstly, — in the introduction of one, two, or more straight ...

   • 1843, The Repertory of patent inventions [formerly The Repertory of arts, manufactures and agriculture], vol. 1 - enlarged series, page 293:

     or woven candle-wick, such wick being made from three or more strands of cotton;

   • [1874], S. W[arren], “The Wool-bearing Shrub”, in Cotton, London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; New York, N.Y.: Pott, Young, & Co., →OCLC, page 14:

     What they did not want for candle-wicks, they employed in stuffing and wadding their doublets and other articles of dress.

   • 1876, Mark Twain [pseudonym; Samuel Langhorne Clemens], chapter XXXIII, in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Hartford, Conn.: The American Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 258:

     He showed Huck the fragment of candle-wick perched on a lump of clay against the wall, and described how he and Becky had watched the flame struggle and expire.