An Etymological Dictionary of the German Language/meckern

by Friedrich Kluge

meckern, vb., ‘to bleat,’ ModHG. only; MidHG. has an equiv. word by a different derivation from the same stem, mëchzen, ‘to bleat,’ allied to MidHG. mëcke, m., ‘he-goat,’ as a nickname (Goth. *m(illegible text)gga, ‘he-goat,’ is wanting). Comp. the pre-Teut. root mak in Gr. μηκάομας, ‘to bleat.’