creak

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English creken (“to utter a harsh cry, to croak”),^[2][3][4][5] apparently of imitative origin.^[6][3][7][8] The OED and Hoad compare crake and croak,^[6][9][10] and Collins calls it a variant of croak.^[11] The Middle English Dictionary and Etymonline compare Old English crǣccettan (“to croak”), also crācettan,^[2][7] from which Dictionary.com takes the verb as apparently a back-formation.^[12] Johnson thought it a corruption of crack.^[13] The OED notes that the Middle English pronunciation would have been /krɛːk/ and the 16th-century one /kreːk/, and that the verb's use probably changed as the vowel narrowed.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

To utter a harsh cry, of crows, rooks, geese and the like: about 1325, in a gloss on Walter de Bibbesworth.^[6][2]

Semantic evolution

The word began with the cries of birds, the use for which croak now serves, and that sense lasted until 1669.^[6] From about 1440, in Capgrave, it was used in contempt of harsh or querulous speech.^[6][9] The modern sense, a harsh grating sound from a hinge or axle or from something under strain, appears in 1582, in Stanyhurst's Virgil;^[6] Barnhart and Merriam-Webster's Collegiate give 1583,^[3][14] and Etymonline the 1580s, of rusty hinges, floorboards and aged bones.^[7] The OED thinks the narrowing of the vowel probably helped this shift.^[6] The noun followed, in 1606 in the OED, 1605 in Barnhart and 1604 in Merriam-Webster.^[6][3][4] Shakespeare has "the creaking of shoes" in King Lear and uses the verb transitively in All's Well that Ends Well.^[13][6] Johnson (1755) noted that it was "sometimes used of animals", quoting Dryden's "creaking locusts",^[13] and the OED's first record for crickets and grasshoppers is from 1653.^[6] To cry creak, to admit defeat, had a brief life from about 1562 to 1609.^[6] Moving with a creaking sound is recorded from 1834,^[6] and the figurative sense of proceeding as if on worn joints is in Merriam-Webster.^[4] In Ireland a creak was also a watchman's rattle.^[15][6]

Timeline

• c. 1325 – to utter a harsh cry, of birds (obsolete by 1669).^[6][2]
• c. 1440 – to speak in a strident or querulous tone.^[6]
• c. 1562 – to cry creak, to give in (obsolete by 1609).^[6]
• 1582 – to make a harsh grating sound.^[6]
• 1606 – noun, a harsh squeak or grating noise.^[6]
• before 1616 – transitive, to cause to creak.^[6]
• 1653 – of the noise of crickets and grasshoppers.^[6]
• 1834 – to move with creaking.^[6] The adjective creaky is from the same year.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make a harsh, prolonged grating or squeaking sound: The stairs creaked under his weight.^[5][4][11]
2. To move with such a sound: The elderly tractor creaked up the lane.^[5][6][11]
3. To proceed slowly, as if on worn wheels or joints.^[4][14]
4. (transitive) To cause something to creak.^[6][16][11]
5. (obsolete, c. 1325–1669) To croak or utter a harsh cry, of a bird.^[6][4]
6. (obsolete) To speak in a strident or querulous tone.^[6][4][16]

Noun

1. A harsh, grating or squeaking noise, as of an ungreased hinge.^{[5][4][6][11]}

Word family

• creakingly
• creaky

Related words

• crake
• croak

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
11. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
12. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
13. ^ a b c Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ a b Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
16. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press