Squeaky

How to spell squeaky

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce squeaky

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does squeaky mean?

1. adjectiveMaking or tending to make a high, thin, sharp sound.

Squeaky in a sentence

• The squeaky hinge on the back door annoyed everyone in the office.

• He wore squeaky trainers that announced his every step down the corridor.

Where does squeaky come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Squeaky is the adjective formed from the verb and noun 'squeak', which appeared in English around the 1300s as an echoic or imitative word: its very sound mimics the thin, high-pitched noise it names, much like its relatives 'squeal', 'creak', and 'shriek'. Words of this kind are not borrowed from a foreign tongue but coined directly from the noise itself, which is why no neat Latin or Greek root lies behind it. The form likely owes something to Old Norse and other Germanic words for shrill cries, since speakers across northern Europe built similar sound-words. By adding the common adjective suffix '-y', meaning 'inclined to' or 'full of', English speakers turned the noise-word into a description of anything that makes such a sound. The spelling keeps the 'eak' cluster of 'squeak', so the trap is remembering that double-e style sound is written 'ea', not 'ee'.

How the word is built

• squeak (imitative root for a high, thin sound)
• -y (adjective suffix meaning 'tending to')