How do you use the word "creek" in a sentence?

Here are real-life examples of using "creek": The child's ball fell into the creek. We're up a creek without a paddle.

Creek Meaning

/ˈkɹiːk/

Definition, CEFR level B1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.

Definition

nounA small inlet, often saltwater, leading to the sea or to the main channel of a river, especially a river estuary.

nounThe inner part of a port that is used as a dock for small boats.

Sentence Examples

The child's ball fell into the creek.

We're up a creek without a paddle.

They have a fabulous view of the creek.

Synonyms & Antonyms

Synonyms:

brook

Antonyms:

None

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CEFR Practice Quiz

The children spent the afternoon splashing in the shallow ____ behind their house.

Word Origin & History

From Middle English crike, probably from Old Norse kriki, from Proto-Germanic *krikjô, variant of krekô, from Proto-Indo-European *ger- (“to turn, to wind”); the modern form creek (already late Middle English creke) either reflects open-syllable lengthening of Middle English /i/ or reborrowing from Middle Dutch krēke., Compare typologically English bight, akin to bend, bow. See also Old Dutch creka, crika (“inlet, cove, creek”), Medieval Latin creca, crica, kríkr (“angle, corner, nook, bay”), Old Norse kraki (“pole with a hook, anchor”), and possibly Old Norse krókr (“hook, bend, bight”). Modern cognates include West Frisian kreek (“creek”), Dutch kreek (“creek, cove, inlet, bight”), and French crique (“cove”) (borrowed from Germanic). Early British colonists of Australia and the Americas used the term in the usual British way, to name inlets; as settlements followed the inlets upstream and inland, the names were retained and creek came to be used to refer to any small waterway. A similar semantic development occurred in Dutch and French, where the word originally meant "bay" but came to mean "stream" especially in the French and Dutch colonies (French Guiana, Dutch Guiana and Indonesia).

Literary Quotations & Historical Citations

"Seven miles to the north of Venice, the banks of sand, which near the city rise little above low-water mark, attain by degrees a higher level, and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea." — 1853, John Ruskin, “Torcello”, in The Stones of Venice, volume II (The Sea-Stories), London: Smith, Elder, and Co., […], →OCLC, § I, page 11:

"There is a tide in the affairs of men, / Which, taken any way you please, is bad, / And strands them in forsaken guts and creeks / No decent soul would think of visiting." — 1887 March 21, Rudyard Kipling, “Kidnapped”, in Plain Tales from the Hills, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co.; London: W. Thacker & Co., published 1888, →OCLC, page 111:

"We all feel it Looming, even when we're awake, out there ahead someplace, the way you come to feel a River or Creek ahead, before anything else,— sound, sky, vegetation,— may have announced it." — 1997, Thomas Pynchon, chapter 67, in Mason & Dixon, 1st US edition, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, part Two: America, page 650:

"Revis, who moved to Macon two-and-a half years ago to work on the park effort, noted that after the Muscogee (Creek) were removed to Oklahoma, the site became a slave plantation." — 2024 June 23, Marnie Hunter, “How the Southern city of Macon went from ‘ghost town’ to ‘popping’ destination”, in CNN, archived from the original on 10 Aug 2024:

"For at least a decade, people on the internet have been drawing fan art of the love between this two characters (a ship known as "Creek"). A cursory search of DeviantArt shows Creek art dating back to 2005. And when Trey Parker and Matt Stone decided it was finally time to acknowledge Creek and their surprisingly robust online fandom, they went straight to the source, soliciting real drawings from users online." — 2015 November 2, Brian Feldman, “How Gay-Themed South Park Fan Art Wound Up on the Show”, in Vulture, New York, N.Y.: Vox Media, →OCLC, archived from the original on 04 Nov 2015:

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