Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A small stream, often a shallow or intermittent tributary to a river.
  • noun A channel or stream running through a salt marsh.
  • noun Chiefly British A small inlet in a shoreline, extending farther inland than a cove.
  • idiom (up the creek (without a paddle)) In a difficult, unfortunate, or inextricable position.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To twist and wind; form a creek.
  • noun A small inlet, bay, or cove; a recess in the shore of the sea or of a river, or of any considerable body of water.
  • noun A small stream; a brook; a rivulet. See crick.
  • noun A turn or winding.
  • noun Hence A device; an artifice; a trick.
  • noun A small seaboard town of insufficient importance to have a customs-station of its own.
  • noun An obsolete spelling of creak.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A small inlet or bay, narrower and extending further into the land than a cove; a recess in the shore of the sea, or of a river.
  • noun A stream of water smaller than a river and larger than a brook.
  • noun Any turn or winding.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun UK, India A small inlet or bay, narrower and extending further into the land than a cove; a recess in the shore of the sea, or of a river.
  • noun Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US A stream of water smaller than a river and larger than a brook.
  • noun Any turn or winding.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun any member of the Creek Confederacy (especially the Muskogee) formerly living in Georgia and Alabama but now chiefly in Oklahoma
  • noun a natural stream of water smaller than a river (and often a tributary of a river)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English creke, probably from Old Norse kriki, bend.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

creke, from kryk, from Old Norse kriki.

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Examples

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  • See this map for American pronunciation.

    April 10, 2008