Croak
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
croak¹
- /kɹoʊk/ US
- /kɹəʊk/ UK
Rhymes with -əʊk
Where it comes from
From Middle English *croken, crouken, (also represented by craken > crake), back-formation from Old English crācettan (“to croak”) (also in derivative crǣcetung (“croaking”)), from Proto-Germanic *krēk-, from Proto-Indo-European *greh₂-g-, from *greh₂-k-, of onomatopoeic origin.
See also Swedish kråka, German krächzen, Sanskrit गर्जति (garjati, “to growl”); also compare Latin grāculus (“jackdaw”), Serbo-Croatian grákati. More at crack, crake and craic.
noun croaks
- A faint, harsh sound made in the throat.
- The call of a frog or toad.
- The harsh call of various birds, such as the raven or corncrake, or other creatures.
verb croaks · croaking · croaked
- To make a croak sound.
- To utter in a low, hoarse voice. The raven himself is hoarse, / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan.
- To make its vocal sound.
- To die. “I would like to understand before I croak. I would like to understand, and then I’m perfectly fine to shuffle off my mortal coil.”
- To kill. He'd seen my face, so I had to croak him.
- To complain; especially, to grumble; to forebode evil; to utter complaints or forebodings habitually. Marat […] croaks with such reasonableness.
- To abort the current program indicating a user or caller error. The accessor croaks if it's not an appropriate object reference.
Croak²
Where it comes from
Variant of Croke.
proper noun Croaks
- A surname from Irish.
