2. A grating or frame of parallel bars in a river to obstruct the passage of fish, or other solid bodies, without obstructing the flow of the water: variously applied to an apparatus of this kind used to catch fish at a weir, and in Scottish and north English, to the bars or spars of which this is composed, also to a horizontal series of bars laid alongside the top of a dam or weir to prevent salmon from jumping over it, and to a grating of vertical bars set in a mill-race to prevent solid floating substances or fish from passing over or under the mill-wheel; = hatch n.¹ 3(a).

3. A rack made with parallel spars to hold fodder, either fixed in a stable, or movable, so as to be placed in a field, cattle-yard, or sheep-fold ( stand-heck); = hack n.⁴ 1, hatch n.¹ 4 at heck and manger: in comfortable circumstances, in plenty, ‘in clover’. Scottish and northern dialect.

4. = hake n.³ 3. Obsolete or dialect.

5. (See quots.) Also heck-board. local.

6. A ‘shuttle’ or sluice in a drain; = hatch n.¹ 3. local.

7. A contrivance in a spinning-wheel, and hence, also, in a warping-mill, by which the yarn or thread is guided to the reel or reels: see quots.

heck-door n.

heck-stake n. (See sense 1.)

heck-stave n.

heck-box n. a box used to divide the warp threads into two alternate sets, one for each heddle or heald.

heck-stead n.

heck-stower n. one of the spars of a heck: see also quot. 1876 for heck-stake n. at Compounds 1.

heck-way n. dialect a doorway.

= Hector n. 2.

= hell n. and int. in asseverations and emphatic expressions. (Also hecky in regional use.)

intransitive. To cough slightly; to imitate the noise of a cough.

† ˈhecking adj. Obsolete = hacking adj. 4