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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

creak.

The sound produced by anything that creaks; a creaking.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/kɹiːk/
  1. The sound produced by anything that creaks; a creaking.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English creken, criken, metathesis of Old English cearcian (“to chatter, creak, crash, gnash”), from Proto-West Germanic *krakōn (“to crash, crack, creak”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerh₂- (“to make a sound, cry hoarsely”), ultimately of imitative origin. Compare also Old English crǣccettan, crācettan (“to croak”), Albanian grykë (“throat”). More at crack.

verb/kɹiːk/
  1. To make a prolonged sharp grating or squeaking sound, as by the friction of hard substances.

    intransitive
  2. To produce a creaking sound with.

    transitive
  3. To suffer from strain or old age.

    figuratively · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English creken, criken, metathesis of Old English cearcian (“to chatter, creak, crash, gnash”), from Proto-West Germanic *krakōn (“to crash, crack, creak”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerh₂- (“to make a sound, cry hoarsely”), ultimately of imitative origin. Compare also Old English crǣccettan, crācettan (“to croak”), Albanian grykë (“throat”). More at crack.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.