creek

Origin: From , probably from , from , variant of krekô, from ; the modern form creek (already late ) either reflects open-syllable lengthening of Middle English or reborrowing from ., Compare typologically , akin to bend, bow. See also , crika, , crica, kríkr, , and possibly . Modern cognates include , , and (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 de. Origin information sourced from Wiktionary contributors (CC BY-SA 4.0).