Other forms: wicks
A wick is the little string in the middle of a candle. When you burn your favorite pumpkin spice candle, you light the wick with a match.
Most candle wicks are made of thin, braided cotton that extends throughout the candle's length. As the wick burns, the wax around it melts. Old-fashioned oil lamps also use wicks to draw oil up and allow a flame to burn slowly. This leads to wick as a verb: "to absorb or draw by capillary action." When a liquid flows in a narrow space, that's wicking. Your quick-dry exercise clothes, for example, wick sweat away from your body.