creaky
/ˈkriːki
/adjective (creakier, creakiest)
1Making or liable to make a creaking sound when being moved or when pressure is applied: I climbed the creaky stairs...
- The play, which runs until January 8, tells the story of an American family who move into a creaky old hall only to discover that they are not alone.
- Then there were sounds like soft footfalls which started in the area of the tower, then moved across the creaky boards of the attic.
- As she walked up the old creaky stairs a sound caught Elizabeth's ears: the sound of a flutelike instrument playing a soft unfamiliar melody.
1.1(Of a voice) producing a harsh, high-pitched sound: ‘We don’t know, do we’, he said, creaky with self-restraint...
- Muscles groaned as they were used one more time, and his creaky voice almost didn't make it out.
- The thing's creaky voice was a cross between nails on a blackboard and a door that seriously needed oiling.
- The world sounded with the creaky, whispery voices of the trees and the low, grating language of the stones, and all was well.
2Old-fashioned or decrepit: the country’s creaky legal system...
- It's feeling a little old and decrepit and creaky.
- Outside London, no professional police force was in place and the mechanisms of control available to the authorities were old-fashioned and creaky.
- The creaky machinery of the legal thriller makes you yearn for a big payoff - but no one, except poor Sheila, goes to jail.
Derivatives
creakily
- Timidly, I pulled it, and a trap door opened creakily.
- Well, to anyone who didn't see that plot twist coming creakily down the pike, I very much envy your ability to be continually surprised at the movies.
- The floorboards were surprisingly strong, their tops layered with dust but barely threatening any give as she moved creakily across them.
creakiness
- Some of the apparent creakiness of the plot turns out to be a bit of a double bluff, and the book rattles along quite painlessly for some 500 pages.
- The trademark creakiness was gone, replaced by an infectious energy and vitality sorely lacking in most musicals of the time.
- This is just one area in which the creakiness of the plot is obvious, this theme is never developed.