croak
UK/kɹəʊk/US/kɹoʊk/
croak noun: a faint, harsh sound made in the throat.
Noun
croak (plural croaks)
Verb
croak (third-person singular simple present croaks, present participle croaking, simple past and past participle croaked)
- To make a croak sound.
- To utter in a low, hoarse voice.
- The raven himself is hoarse, / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan.c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount...
- “I am so tired,” he croaked. “It’s ageing this nation in Tom Hanks in Castaway years.”2025 April 29, The Guardian, archived from the original on 11 Aug 2025
- To make its vocal sound.
- To die.
- “I would like to understand before I croak. I would like to understand, and then I’m perfectly fine to shuffle off my mortal coil.”2026, Sebastian Mallaby, “Introduction”, in The Infinity Machine: Demis Hassabis, DeepMind and the Quest for Superintelligence, Penguin, →ISBN
- To kill.
- He'd seen my face, so I had to croak him.
- "It was me. And I'm glad, damned glad, I didn't croak him. With this slick guy after me, it would be me for the chair."1920 June, The Electrical Experimenter, New York, page 216, column 2
- To complain; especially, to grumble; to forebode evil; to utter complaints or forebodings habitually.
- Marat […] croaks with such reasonableness.1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number)
- To abort the current program indicating a user or caller error.
- The accessor croaks if it's not an appropriate object reference.2002, Nathan Patwardhan, Ellen Siever, Stephen Spainhour, Perl, O'Reilly, →ISBN, page 200
Proper noun capitalized: Croak
Croak (plural Croaks)
- A surname from Irish.
croak meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
croak in Tamil
- தாழ்ந்த, கடூரமான குரலில் பேசு, தெரிவி, நம்பிக்கை இழந்து பேசு, தீயது வரும் என்று கூறு, குறை கூறு
croak in Bengali
- ব্যাঙ, কাকের ডাক, কর্কশ কণ্ঠে বলা
croak in Malayalam
- കാക്കയെപ്പോലെയോ തവളയെപ്പോലെയോ കരയുക
croak in Kannada
- ಅರಚು, ಗೊಣಗು
More languagesFewer languages
- croak in Assamese
- টুৰ টুৰ tur tur, টুৰ টুৰা tur tura
- croak in Tagalog
- kokak, kumokak
- croak in Arabic
- نَقِيق naqīq, نَقَّ naqqa
- croak in Indonesian
- menguak
Examples of croak in a sentence
- "Helene," he croaked, reaching out his arms—his voice tensed with the infinity of his desire.
- I croak that I am sorry for having invaded her hut.
- “Alms, sire,” he croaked, his eyes wide and fearful, his face lean and hungry.
Synonyms of croak
Forms of croak
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | croaks |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | croaks |
| present participle | croaking |
| past participle | croaked |
| past | croaked |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Croaks |
Origin of croak
From Middle English *croken, crouken, (also represented by craken > crake), back-formation from Old English crācettan (“to croak”) (also in derivative crǣcetung (“croaking”)), from Proto-Germanic *krēk-, from Proto-Indo-European *greh₂-g-, from *greh₂-k-, of onomatopoeic origin. See also Swedish kråka, German krächzen, Sanskrit गर्जति (garjati, “to growl”); also compare Latin grāculus (“jackdaw”), Serbo-Croatian grákati. More at crack, crake and craic.
Variant of Croke.
Words formed from croak
Words that rhyme with croak
Questions about croak
- What does croak mean?
- Croak means a faint, harsh sound made in the throat.
- What is croak in Tamil?
- Croak in Tamil is தாழ்ந்த, கடூரமான குரலில் பேசு, தெரிவி. See Croak meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is croak?
- Croak can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce croak?
- Croak is pronounced /kɹoʊk/ (US).
- What is the plural of croak?
- The plural of croak is croaks.
Words near croak in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: croak (page history and authors); Croak (page history and authors); croak (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); croak (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); croak (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); croak (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-croak.ogg.
Cite this entry: “croak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/croak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.