Creek

Multiple Entries:
  Creek    creek  

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
Creek /kriːk/

▶noun (pl. same)

• 1 a member of a confederacy of American Indian peoples of the south-eastern US in the 16th to 19th centuries.

• 2 the Muskogean language spoken by the Creek.

– origin from creek, because they lived beside the waterways of the flatlands of Georgia and Alabama.

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:
creek/kriːk/

▶noun chiefly Brit. a narrow, sheltered waterway such as an inlet in a shoreline or channel in a marsh.

■ N. Amer. & Austral./NZ a stream or minor tributary of a river.

– phrases
up the creek informal

• 1 in severe difficulty or trouble.

• 2 Brit. stupid or misguided.

– origin ME: from OFr. crique or from ON kriki ‘nook’.