Word.ws English Dictionary

creek

/ˈkɹiːk/

creek noun: a small inlet, often saltwater, leading to the sea or to the main channel of a river, especially a river estuary.

Noun (1)

creek (plural creeks)

  1. (UK) A small inlet, often saltwater, leading to the sea or to the main channel of a river, especially a river estuary.
    • Seven miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand, which near the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea.1853, John Ruskin, “Torcello”, in The Stones of Venice, volume II (The Sea-Stories), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, § I, page 11
    • There is a tide in the affairs of men, / Which, taken any way you please, is bad, / And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks / No decent soul would think of visiting.1887 March 21, Rudyard Kipling, “Kidnapped”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co.; London: W. Thacker & Co., published 1888, →OCLC, page 111
  2. (UK) The inner part of a port that is used as a dock for small boats.
  3. (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, US) A stream of water, typically a stream of freshwater smaller than a river; in Australia, also used of river-sized bodies of water.
    • We all feel it Looming, even when we're awake, out there ahead someplace, the way you come to feel a River or Creek ahead, before anything else,— sound, sky, vegetation,— may have announced it.1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 67, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 650
    Synonyms:
    run
  4. Any turn or winding.

Noun (2) capitalized: Creek

Creek (plural Creeks or Creek)

  1. One of a Native American tribe from the Southeastern United States, also known as the Muscogee.
    • Revis, who moved to Macon two-and-a half years ago to work on the park effort, noted that after the Muscogee (Creek) were removed to Oklahoma, the site became a slave plantation.2024 June 23, Marnie Hunter, “How the Southern city of Macon went from ‘ghost town’ to ‘popping’ destination”, in CNN, archived from the original on 10 Aug 2024

Proper noun (1) capitalized: Creek

Creek

  1. The Muskogean language of the Creek tribe.
  2. A surname.

Adjective capitalized: Creek

Creek (not comparable)

  1. Of or pertaining to the Creek tribe.
    • The chieftain was well versed in Creek history.

Proper noun (2) capitalized: Creek

Creek

  1. (slang) The ship of characters Craig Tucker and Tweek Tweak from the South Park series.
    • For at least a decade, people on the internet have been drawing fan art of the love between this two characters (a ship known as "Creek"). A cursory search of DeviantArt shows Creek art dating back to 2005. And when Trey Parker and Matt Stone decided it was finally time to acknowledge Creek and...2015 November 2, Brian Feldman, “How Gay-Themed South Park Fan Art Wound Up on the Show”, in Vulture, New York, N.Y.: Vox Media, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Nov 2015
    • The episode’s humor and heart speak to viewers bemused at the concept of yaoi and devoted “Creek” shippers alike, but it isn’t the child characters learning something by the show’s conclusion. Instead, it’s a father who learns a lesson about being a better parent to his son.2016 February 9, Paige Sammartino, “Tweek X Craig: A Message to Parents of LGBTQ Kids”, in Megan Purdy, editor, WomenWriteAboutComics, archived from the original on 26 Jul 2020

creek meaning in Tamil, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

creek in Tamil

சிற்றோடை, கடற்சந்து, முரம்பு, கடற்கழி, கடற்கூம்பு, சிறுகுடா

creek in Marathi

small inlet or bay
खाडी khāḍī

creek in Urdu

کھاڑی

creek in Bengali

খাঁড়ি, খাত
More languagesFewer languages
creek in Malayalam
ചെറിയഉൾക്കടൽ, ചെറുതുറമുഖം, നദീമുഖം
creek in Kannada
ತೋಡು, ಹಳ್ಳ
creek in Tagalog
sapa, ilat
creek in Malay
serokan, anak sungai
creek in Vietnamese
lạch

Examples of creek in a sentence

  • The military campaign near that creek was known as "The battle of Bull Run".
  • We'll be up the creek if we lose those files, so we should back them up regularly.
  • This creek is too small to be paddleable in any practical sense; portage is the sensible option.

All 40 example sentences with creek

Synonyms of creek

All synonyms of creek

Forms of creek

pluralcreeks
alternative pronunciation-spellingcrik
pluralCreeks
pluralCreek
alternative Canada US (dialectal)crick
alternative UK (obsolete, dialectal)crike
alternative UK (obsolete, dialectal)cryke

Plural of creek: creeks

Origin of creek

From Middle English crike, probably from Old Norse kriki, from Proto-Germanic *krikjô, variant of krekô, from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to turn, to wind”); the modern form creek (already late Middle English creke) either reflects open-syllable lengthening of Middle English /i/ or reborrowing from Middle Dutch krēke., Compare typologically English bight, akin to bend, bow. See also Old Dutch creka, crika (“inlet, cove, creek”), Medieval Latin creca, crica, kríkr (“angle, corner, nook, bay”), 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...

* As an English surname, from Creake in Norfolk, a variant of the noun crag (“steep rugged cliff”). * Also as an English surname, from the archaic noun cratch (“crib, manger”). * As a German surname, Americanized from Krieg (“war, warfare”), Krück, Kruck (see Krug (“jug”) and Krücke (“crutch”)), Krick. * As a Dutch surname, Americanized from Kreek (from the noun kreek (“creek”), see creek) and Kriek (from kriek (“cherry”)). * The Native American tribe name is likely shortened from Ocheese Creek (the Hitchiti name for the body of water known today as the Ocmulgee River).

Blend of Craig + Tweek (an alteration of tweak).

Words formed from creek

Phrases with creek

165 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with creek

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about creek

What does creek mean?
Creek means a small inlet, often saltwater, leading to the sea or to the main channel of a river, especially a river estuary.
What is creek in Tamil?
Creek in Tamil is சிற்றோடை, கடற்சந்து, முரம்பு. See Creek meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is creek?
Creek can be a noun, a proper noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce creek?
Creek is pronounced /ˈkɹiːk/.
What is the plural of creek?
The plural of creek is creeks.

Words near creek in the dictionary

  1. creedsmen
  2. Creedy
  3. Creedys
  4. Creegan
  5. Creegans
  6. creek
  7. creek bed
  8. creek beds
  9. creek boat
  10. creek boats
  11. Creek County

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: creek (page history and authors); Creek (page history and authors); creek (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); creek (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); creek (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); creek (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); creek (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-creek.ogg, EN-AU ck1 creek.ogg.

Cite this entry: “creek.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/creek. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.