crick

/kɹɪk/

crick noun: a painful stiffness in some part of the body, like the neck or back, which makes it difficult to move the affected body part for some time; a cramp. Also the alternative form of creek.

Noun (1)

crick (plural cricks)

A painful stiffness in some part of the body, like the neck or back, which makes it difficult to move the affected body part for some time; a cramp.
- I had a crick in my neck for a week after ordering the wrong pillow at the Graylyn Estate […]2022, Brenda Prater Sellers, You Slept Where?: Calamities of a Clumsy Businesswoman
A small jackscrew.

Verb (1)

crick (third-person singular simple present cricks, present participle cricking, simple past and past participle cricked)

To develop a crick (cramp, spasm).
- Stomach sleeping never worked for her because her neck cricked and pained in so short a time, that she never got the chance to fall asleep that way although the rest of her body snuggled well into the bed in that position.2008, Jacqueline Signori, Ada, →ISBN, page 48
- “He's upstairs.” As soon as she said this, a loud knocking came from the crawl space below. Katrín was so startled that her neck cricked painfully as she looked down. Adrenalin rushed through her veins and the pain in her fingers disappeared.2014, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, I Remember You: A Ghost Story, Minotaur Books, →ISBN
To cause to develop a crick; to create a crick in.
- He'd fallen asleep after all (and he'd done it in such a way as to crick his neck and his back and put his right arm to sleep; hardly a good start to a busy day) and now daylight was seeping through the bald patches in the thatch, ...2013, K. J. Parker, Pattern, Orbit, →ISBN
To twist, bend, or contort, especially in a way that produces strain.
- He stopped a few feet from her, probably because he'd have to crick his neck to glare at her and that would just be embarrassing for him. “Dealing with garbage suits you.”2011, Camy Tang, Protection for Hire: A Novel, Zondervan, →ISBN
- The throbbing pain that even now was coursing through his neck and shoulders, making him crick his neck.2012, Doug Johnstone, Hit and Run, Faber & Faber, →ISBN

Verb (2)

crick (third-person singular simple present cricks, present participle cricking, simple past and past participle cricked)

(intransitive) To make a sharp, penetrating sound; chirp.

Noun (2)

crick (plural cricks)

The creaking of a door, or a noise resembling it.

Proper noun capitalized: Crick

Crick

A village and civil parish in West Northamptonshire, Northamptonshire, England, previously in Daventry district (OS grid ref SP5872).
A small village in Caerwent community, Monmouthshire, Wales (OS grid ref ST4890).
A habitational surname derived from the placename.
- Francis Crick was the co-discoverer of the structure of DNA.

Also used as

crick is also the alternative form of creek.

Examples of crick in a sentence

Addy was tall for a woman, and he liked that because he didn't have to crick his neck ...2015, Emma Miller, A Match for Addy, Harlequin, →ISBN, page 121:
Now she was able to stand on her feet, so long as she kept her neck cricked.2018, Tim Major, Machineries of Mercy, ChiZine Publications, →ISBN:

Forms of crick

Noun
plural	cricks
Verb
third-person singular present	cricks
present participle	cricking
past participle	cricked
past	cricked

Plural of crick: cricks

Origin of crick

From Middle English crike, crykke (“muscular spasm of the neck”), attested since the 1400s. Likely related to Old Norse kriki (“bend; nook”), whence also crick (“creek”) and creek.

See creek.

Uncertain. Possibly an alteration of creak; or perhaps from Middle English crikken, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *krakōn, or Proto-West Germanic *krakkjan

Words formed from crick

Words that rhyme with crick

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about crick

What does crick mean?: Crick means a painful stiffness in some part of the body, like the neck or back, which makes it difficult to move the affected body part for some time; a cramp.
How do you use crick in a sentence?: Addy was tall for a woman, and he liked that because he didn't have to crick his neck ...
What part of speech is crick?: Crick can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce crick?: Crick is pronounced /kɹɪk/.
What is the plural of crick?: The plural of crick is cricks.

Words near crick in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: crick (page history and authors); Crick (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: 2026-09-02

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

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