creak
verb · noun
Simple meaning
To make a prolonged sharp grating or squeaking sound, as by the friction of hard substances.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
kreekIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɹik
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
verb
intransitive
To make a prolonged sharp grating or squeaking sound, as by the friction of hard substances.
transitive
To produce a creaking sound with.
intransitivefigurative
To suffer from strain or old age.
noun
A squeaking sound
“The creak of the floorboards gave him away.”
The sound produced by anything that creaks; a creaking.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient (estimated)
- Frequency
- Rare
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: To make a prolonged sharp grating or squeaking sound, as by the friction of hard substances.
Used this way, creak is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use creak
- “The door creaked when I opened it slowly.”verb
- “The creak of the floorboards gave him away.”noun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.