creaky
AmericanOther Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of creaky
Explanation
Something that's creaky makes a groaning or scraping sound. If your front door is creaky, its hinges might need to be oiled. The sound of footsteps on a creaky wood floor, or climbing your creaky stairs, can be spooky at night. You can also describe a hoarse or high-pitched voice as creaky, and your grandfather might sigh, "Oh, these creaky old knees," when he stands up. Creaky describes the grating sound, and also the worn out or run-down nature of old things or people. It comes from creak, which is imitative — its sound suggests its meaning.
Vocabulary lists containing creaky
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Steel has attempted to replace Mon Valley’s creaky hot-strip line in the past.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 8, 2026
The most creaky veteran played with the most aggression.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 2, 2026
Experts say Venezuela's oil infrastructure is creaky after years of mismanagement and sanctions.
From Barron's ● Jan. 11, 2026
I remember walking up the creaky stairs of the house to our room and feeling like I was walking somewhere with high elevation.
From Salon ● Oct. 31, 2025
“Spots and backaches, creaky bones, make this young witch into a crone.”
From "Witchlings" by Claribel A. Ortega
And as crazy as it sounds, as he gets older and creakier, Kershaw continues to live out the first words that are heard from the “Fun” song that has forever accompanied him to the mound.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 24, 2023
Morgan always designed his drama to be a "love letter" to the recently departed monarch, and it plays as such, even in these creakier new episodes.
From Salon ● Nov. 11, 2022
But that piquant diversion turns out to be a tease, and when “The Lost City” gets down to executing its plot, it grows creakier with every painfully familiar twist.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 23, 2022
“T2 Trainspotting,” to use its perplexing title, is slower and creakier than “Trainspotting.”
From New York Times ● Jan. 26, 2017
Like many people, I suspect, I for years held my own ideas about how Swift ought to mature, based on a creakier notion of “quality songwriting” than her industry-savvy one.
From Slate ● Oct. 29, 2014
The 21-year-old, born Rodrick Wayne Moore Jr., has these strangely piercing hazel eyes that, when he’s skeptical, can make you feel like the creakiest boomer alive.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 22, 2020
He was driving the creakiest, oldest and smallest Hyundai that I'd ever seen.
From New York Times ● May 15, 2018
But Wan has a gift for investing even the creakiest cliches with shivery élan.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2016
In 1936, Hollywood staged one of its earliest – and creakiest – onscreen apocalypses in San Francisco, a melodrama about the city-leveling 1906 earthquake.
From The Guardian ● May 23, 2015
I lead the way, pointing to the creakiest steps so Fina will know to skip them.
From "How to Disappear Completely" by Ali Standish
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
