creel

From Middle English crele, possibly from an Old French root *creille, variant of greille (compare French grille), from Latin crāticula. Alternatively, this word may have originally been of Scottish origin.

• IPA^(key): /kɹiːl/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːl

creel (plural creels)

1. A woven basket, especially a wicker basket and especially as follows:
   1. (fishing) An osier basket that anglers use to hold fish.
      • 1895, R. D. Blackmore, Slain By The Doones, Dodd, Mead and Company, page 6:

        Return with a creel of trout for supper.

      • 1897, William Henley, In Fisherrow:

        Her great creel forehead-slung, she wanders nigh,
        Easing the heavy strap with gnarled, brown fingers

   2. (chiefly historical) Such a basket slung as a backpack for cargo, especially in times and places with limited or nonexistent wheeled transport, as for example among peasants in mountainous regions.
      1. (chiefly historical) Such a basket slung on a pack animal; a pannier.
2. (textile making) A bar or set of bars with skewers for holding paying-off bobbins, as in the roving machine, throstle, and mule.

• creeler

• skep
• skip

creel (third-person singular simple present creels, present participle creeling, simple past and past participle creeled)

1. (transitive) To place (fish) in a creel.

• cleer