croak

From Middle English *croken, crouken, (also represented by craken > crake), back-formation from Old English crācettan (“to croak”) (also in derivative crǣcettung (“croaking”)), from Proto-Germanic *krēk- (compare Swedish kråka, German krächzen), potentially from Proto-Indo-European *greh₂-g- (compare Sanskrit गर्जति (garjati, “to growl”); also Latin grāculus (“jackdaw”), Serbo-Croatian grákati from *greh₂-k-), of onomatopoeic origin.

• (General American) enPR: krōk, IPA^(key): /kɹoʊk/
• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: krōk, IPA^(key): /kɹəʊk/

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• Rhymes: -əʊk

croak (plural croaks)

1. A faint, harsh sound made in the throat.
2. The call of a frog or toad. (see also ribbit)
3. The harsh call of various birds, such as the raven or corncrake, or other creatures.

croak (third-person singular simple present croaks, present participle croaking, simple past and past participle croaked)

1. (intransitive) To make a croak.
2. (transitive) To utter in a low, hoarse voice.
   • c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene v]:

     The raven himself is hoarse, / That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan.

3. (intransitive, of a frog, toad, raven, or various other birds or animals) To make its sound.
4. (slang) To die.
5. (transitive, slang) To kill someone or something.

   He'd seen my face, so I had to croak him.

   • 1920 June, The Electrical Experimenter, New York, page 216, column 2:

     "It was me. And I'm glad, damned glad, I didn't croak him. With this slick guy after me, it would be me for the chair."

   • 1925, G. K. Chesterton, The Arrow of Heaven (first published in Nash's Pall Mall Magazine, Jul 1925)

     If Wilton croaked the criminal he did a jolly good day's work, and there's an end of it.

6. To complain; especially, to grumble; to forebode evil; to utter complaints or forebodings habitually.
   • 1837, Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution: A History […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Chapman and Hall, →OCLC, (please specify the book or page number):

     Marat […] croaks with such reasonableness.

7. (programming slang, Perl) To abort the current program indicating a user or caller error.
   • 2002, Nathan Patwardhan, Ellen Siever, Stephen Spainhour, Perl, O'Reilly, →ISBN, page 200:

     The accessor croaks if it's not an appropriate object reference.