Definition of CREEK

creek

Meanings

Plural: creeks

Noun

  • a natural stream of water smaller than a river (and often a tributary of a river)
    • "the creek dried up every summer"
  • any member of the Creek Confederacy (especially the Muskogee) formerly living in Georgia and Alabama but now chiefly in Oklahoma
  • A small inlet, often saltwater, leading to the sea or to the main channel of a river, especially a river estuary.
  • The inner part of a port that is used as a dock for small boats.
  • A stream of water, typically a stream of freshwater smaller than a river; in Australia, also used of river-sized bodies of water.
  • Any turn or winding.

Origin / Etymology

From Middle English creke, kreke, creake, of unclear origin.
Additional etymological information
It existed alongside a second variant in Middle English cryke, krike, cricke, from Old Norse kriki. The first form possibly continues Old English *creca (attested in the diminutive crecca (“creek, bay, wharf”) also found in Anglo-Latin as creca, crecca), from Proto-West Germanic *krekō, from Proto-Germanic *krekô, *krekuz (“corner, hook, angle, bend, bight”), from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to turn, to wind”).
See also Old Dutch creka, crika (“inlet, cove, creek”), Old Norse kriki, krikr (“angle, corner, nook, bight”), Old Norse kraki (“pole with a hook, anchor”), and possibly Old Norse krókr (“hook, bend, bight”). Modern cognates include West Frisian kreek (“creek”), Dutch kreek (“creek, cove, inlet, bight”), and French crique (“cove”) (borrowed from Germanic).
Early British colonists of Australia and the Americas used the term in the usual British way, to name inlets; as settlements followed the inlets upstream and inland, the names were retained and creek came to be used to refer to any small waterway. A similar semantic development occurred in Dutch and French, where the word originally meant "bay" but came to mean "stream" especially in the French and Dutch colonies (French Guiana, Dutch Guiana and Indonesia).

Synonyms

bayou, beck, branch, brook, burn, run, stream

Scrabble Score: 11

creek is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL word
creek is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
creek is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary

Words With Friends Score: 12

creek is a valid Words With Friends word