Word.ws English Dictionary

crèche

/kɹɛʃ/

crèche noun: a representation of the nativity scene.

crèche: a representation of the nativity scene
Image: Robert Lawton, CC BY-SA 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

crèche (plural crèches)

  1. A representation of the nativity scene.
    • At last, all was complete. The creche at Greccio looked like a new Bethlehem. The baby Jesus would be placed in the manger at midnight Mass.2007, Clyde A. Bonar, Amen, I Say to You, page 666
  2. (Ireland, UK) A day nursery.
    • They drop their two-year-old off at the crèche in the morning before they go to work.
    • If you leave the kids in the creche for one morning on your week's holiday, and they are OK with that, then it's fine.2012, Roni Jay, The 10 Most Important Things You Can Do For Your Children
  3. (historical) A hospital for orphaned infants; a foundling hospital.
    • One road leads to desertion of the child in a convenient hallway; another to the creche of a foundling hospital; a third, to a boarding home, good or indifferent, for the child.1894, Amos Griswold Warner, American Charities: A Study in Philanthropy and Economics, page 272
    • In line with this policy, a couple could adopt a Crèche foundling only if one or both of them were Roman Catholics.1973, Wayne Dennis, Children of the Crèche, page 74
  4. (collective, marine biology) A group of young who stay together for protection.

Forms of crèche

pluralcrèches
alternative formcreche

Origin of crèche

Unadapted borrowing from French crèche (“manger”), from Frankish *krippija, *kribbija, from Proto-Germanic *kribjǭ. Doublet of crib. Daycare meaning comes from recent use in France French (whereas in Canadian French garderie is used instead).

Words formed from crèche

Words that rhyme with crèche

21 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about crèche

What does crèche mean?
Crèche means a representation of the nativity scene.
What part of speech is crèche?
Crèche is a noun.
How do you pronounce crèche?
Crèche is pronounced /kɹɛʃ/.
What is the plural of crèche?
The plural of crèche is crèches.

Words near crèche in the dictionary

  1. crystobalite
  2. crystobalites
  3. crystolon
  4. Crângeni
  5. Crângurile
  6. crèche
  7. crèchemate
  8. crèchemates
  9. crèches
  10. crème
  11. crème anglaise

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crèche (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-crèche.wav.

Cite this entry: “crèche.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/cr%C3%A8che. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.