Definitions

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

  • noun A painful cramp or muscle spasm, as in the back or neck.
  • transitive verb To cause a painful cramp or muscle spasm in by turning or wrenching.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To creak.
  • To wrench or sprain: as, to crick one's neck.
  • noun A painful spasmodic affection of some part of the body, as of the neck or back, in the nature of a cramp or transient stiffness, making motion of the part difficult.
  • noun A small jackscrew.
  • noun An inlet of the sea or a river: same as creek
  • noun A small stream; a brook: same as creek, 2, which is the usual spelling, though generally pronounced in the United States as crick.
  • noun A crevice; chink; cranny; corner.
  • noun A creaking. as of a door.

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

  • noun obsolete The creaking of a door, or a noise resembling it.
  • noun A painful, spasmodic affection of the muscles of some part of the body, as of the neck or back, rendering it difficult to move the part.
  • noun A small jackscrew.

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

  • noun A painful muscular cramp or spasm of some part of the body, as of the neck or back, making it difficult to move the part affected. (Compare catch.)
  • noun A small jackscrew.
  • verb to violently spasm.
  • noun Appalachian Alternative form of creek.

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

  • noun English biochemist who (with Watson in 1953) helped discover the helical structure of DNA (1916-2004)
  • verb twist (a body part) into a strained position
  • noun a painful muscle spasm especially in the neck or back (`rick' and `wrick' are British)

Etymologies

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

[Middle English crike.]

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Examples

Comments

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  • I mean the kind you go fishin' in, not what happens to your neck when you spend too much time making wordie lists.

    February 7, 2007

  • crick: smaller than a creek but bigger than a trickle.

    May 16, 2008

  • 'The old man's jaw hung open, his eyes frowning with concentration, trying not to miss a single word.

    "Yes, green trees. Probably willow trees near a crick. And I see something under those trees. A - it's a wagon."'

    - Nightmare Alley, William Lindsay Gresham

    June 30, 2012