eek

See also: EEK, ÉÉK, Eek, eek’, and ээк

English

Pronunciation

  • enPR: ēk, IPA(key): /iːk/
  • Homophone: eke
  • Rhymes: -iːk

Etymology 1

Imitative; compare eep.

Interjection

eek

  1. (onomatopoeia) Representing a scream or shriek (especially in comic strips and books).
    Eek! There's a mouse in the bathtub!
  2. (onomatopoeia) Expressing (sometimes mock) fear or surprise.
    I almost got fired from my job yesterday. Eek!
  3. (onomatopoeia) Representing the shrill vocal sound of a mouse, rat, or monkey.
Translations

Verb

eek (third-person singular simple present eeks, present participle eeking, simple past and past participle eeked)

  1. (onomatopoeia) To produce a high-pitched squeal, as in fear or trepidation.
    • 2009, Paul Gelder, Yachting Monthly's Further Confessions
      She was dangling the mouse by its tail, but as it tried to arch upwards and bite, she started to jig about wildly [] The anglers had watched a beautiful young woman dance naked beneath a full moon to the feverish rhythm of unworldly eeking noises!
    • 2011, Isaac E. Washington, The Stars in My Dreams (page 106)
      We saw a frog and she eeked in terror again from the sight of it hopping near her.

Etymology 2

Clipping of ecaf (face), from face via backslang.

Noun

eek (plural eeks)

  1. (Polari) Face
    How bona to vada your eek!How good to see your face!
    • 2015 October 12, Lowe, Adam, “Poem of the week: Vada That”, in The Guardian:
      Though she's a bimbo bit of hard, / she’s royal and tart. And girl, you know / vadaing her eek is always bona.
Synonyms

Etymology 3

Adverb

eek (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete) also
    • c. 1387: Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales ("General Prologue")
      Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth / Inspired hath in every holt and heeth / The tendre croppes

Anagrams


Dutch

Etymology

From Middle Dutch eec. Doublet of eik (oak).

Pronunciation

  • (file)

Noun

eek f (plural eken, diminutive eekje n)

  1. oak bark

Synonyms

  • eikenschors

Middle English

Adverb

eek

  1. Alternative form of ek
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