eek

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

Imitative; compare eep.

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.

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.

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

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.

• See Thesaurus:countenance

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

• Kee, eke, kee

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

• Audio

  (file)

eek f (plural eken, diminutive eekje n)

1. oak bark

• eikenschors

eek

1. Alternative form of ek
   • 14th c. Geoffrey Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales. General Prologue: 5-6.

     Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth

     Inspired hath in every holt and heeth