crick

See also: Crick

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kɹɪk/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪk

Etymology 1

From Middle English crike, crykke (“muscular spasm of the neck”), attested since the 1400s. Likely related to Old Norse kriki (“bend; nook”), whence also crick (“creek”) and creek.

Noun

crick (plural cricks)

1. A painful stiffness in some part of the body, like the neck or back, which makes it difficult to move the affected body part for some time; a cramp.

   Coordinate term: catch

   • 2022, Brenda Prater Sellers, You Slept Where?: Calamities of a Clumsy Businesswoman:

     I had a crick in my neck for a week after ordering the wrong pillow at the Graylyn Estate […]

2. A small jackscrew.

Translations

muscular cramp or spasm

• Bulgarian: разтягане (bg) (raztjagane), схващане (bg) (shvaštane)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 落枕 (zh) (làozhěn) (crick of the neck), 閃到腰 / 闪到腰 (shǎndàoyāo) (crick of the back)

• Czech: strnutí n, svalová křeč
• French: crampe (fr) f, spasme (fr) m
• Hungarian: rándulás (hu)
• Italian: torcicollo (it) m (crick of the neck)

Verb

crick (third-person singular simple present cricks, present participle cricking, simple past and past participle cricked)

1. To develop a crick (cramp, spasm).
   • 2008, Jacqueline Signori, Ada, →ISBN, page 48:

     Stomach sleeping never worked for her because her neck cricked and pained in so short a time, that she never got the chance to fall asleep that way although the rest of her body snuggled well into the bed in that position.

   • 2014, Yrsa Sigurdardottir, I Remember You: A Ghost Story, Minotaur Books, →ISBN:

     “He's upstairs.” As soon as she said this, a loud knocking came from the crawl space below. Katrín was so startled that her neck cricked painfully as she looked down. Adrenalin rushed through her veins and the pain in her fingers disappeared.

2. To cause to develop a crick; to create a crick in.
   • 2013, K. J. Parker, Pattern, Orbit, →ISBN:

     He'd fallen asleep after all (and he'd done it in such a way as to crick his neck and his back and put his right arm to sleep; hardly a good start to a busy day) and now daylight was seeping through the bald patches in the thatch, ...

3. To twist, bend, or contort, especially in a way that produces strain.
   • 2011, Camy Tang, Protection for Hire: A Novel, Zondervan, →ISBN:

     He stopped a few feet from her, probably because he'd have to crick his neck to glare at her and that would just be embarrassing for him. “Dealing with garbage suits you.”

   • 2012, Doug Johnstone, Hit and Run, Faber & Faber, →ISBN:

     The throbbing pain that even now was coursing through his neck and shoulders, making him crick his neck.

   • 2015, Emma Miller, A Match for Addy, Harlequin, →ISBN, page 121:

     Addy was tall for a woman, and he liked that because he didn't have to crick his neck ...

   • 2018, Tim Major, Machineries of Mercy, ChiZine Publications, →ISBN:

     Now she was able to stand on her feet, so long as she kept her neck cricked.

Derived terms

• cricky
• uncrick

Etymology 2

See creek.

Noun

crick (plural cricks)

1. (Appalachia, Ottawa Valley) Alternative form of creek.

Etymology 3

Uncertain. Possibly an alteration of creak; or perhaps from Middle English crikken, ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *krakōn, or Proto-West Germanic *krakkjan

Verb

crick (third-person singular simple present cricks, present participle cricking, simple past and past participle cricked)

1. (intransitive) To make a sharp, penetrating sound; chirp.

Noun

crick (plural cricks)

1. The creaking of a door, or a noise resembling it.

Italian

Etymology

Unadapted borrowing from English crick (“a jackscrew”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈkrik/
• Rhymes: -ik

Noun

crick m

1. car jack (tool)

   Synonyms: martinetto, sollevatore