Chiefly dial. Also 7 crey, crede, 9 creave, creeve. [The original form was app. creve, creeve, a. F. crever to burst, split, in faire crever le riz, to cause rice to swell with boiling water or steam (Littré). For the reduction to cree, cf. Sc. preve pree, leve lee, etc. See also CREVE v.]
1. trans. To soften (grain) by boiling.
1620. Markham, Farew. Husb. (1625), 135. Barley … may … be creyed, parcht, or boyled.
1655. Queen’s Closet Opened, 159 (D.). Take rie and crede it as you do wheat for Furmity.
1674–91. Ray, N. C. Words, 18. To Cree Wheat or Barly, &c., to boil it soft.
1846. Gard. Chron., 237. To … pour boiling water on the malt would cause it to become solidified or creed.
1876. Whitby Gloss., Creave, or Cree, to pre-boil rice or wheat so as to soften it for cookery purposes … ‘Creaving days,’ those in the country when creaved wheat is prepared to sell in the town for Christmas frumity.
1877–88. in Holderness & Sheffield Gloss., Cree.
2. intr. To become soft or pulpy by soaking or boiling.
1863. Mrs. Toogood, Yorksh. Dial., This rice is not good, I have boiled it for ten minutes, but it does not creeve.
1876. Whitby Gloss., s.v., The sown wheat is said to ‘creave in the ground’ when it swells and bursts from over wet weather, instead of shooting.
3. trans. To pound or crush into a soft mass. Hence creeing-trough, the ‘knocking-trough’ formerly used for pounding grain.
1822. Bewick, Mem., 13. I stript, and fell to work to ‘cree’ them with a wooden ‘mell,’ in a stone trough, till the tops of the whins were beaten to the consistency of soft, wet grass.
1852. Jrnl. R. Agric. Soc., XIII. II. 256. The corn was crushed in the mill, or in the creeing-trough.
1886. Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, 360. A fine creeing-trough.
Hence Creed ppl. a.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, i. (1880), 31. On the Trent creed-malt is a favourite roach-bait.
1890. Lincoln Gaz., 6 Sept., 8/1. [He] secured a nice basket of roach with creed wheat.
