The story
- Low German · derived fromgeck“to mock, cackle”
- English todaygecker
Coined by 1962, likely derived from Low German geck (“to mock, cackle”) from related terms such as German gackern (“to cackle”) and German keckern (“to make angry noises [of an animal]”). The same call types had previously been referred to as types of keckern in German publications. Possibly also onomatopoeic from “ik, ik, ik.”
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.