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I am wondering why certain words can have totally different meanings.

For example the word “crick“. On the one hand, it describes a really small river and on the other hand, it describes a muscle cramp. There is not even a remote connection between the two meanings.

Why is that so? Have words like that randomly be given those meanings/developed those meanings or is it because nobody could think of a new word, so they put different meanings on some already existing words in order for the meaning to not get confused in context (as it is two totally different ones)?

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    Did you mean creek for the "really small river"?
    – Lawrence
    Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 13:57
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    Yes, but it can also be “crick“, which has the same meaning.
    – user192211
    Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 13:59
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    It's most probable that there are two words: the crick in your neck; and a different word, crick, which is an alternative spelling of creek. Historically the two cricks are most probably not related to each other, as far as etymology, per the Oxford English Dictionary.
    – Arm the good guys in America
    Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 14:09
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    Crick is a local variant for creek; when both are in use in a speech community, crick refers to the smaller or more seasonal stream.
    – John Lawler
    Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 15:05
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    The word bow is the worst I know in this respect, with two distinct pronunciations and (at least) four completely different meanings!
    – Ronald Sole
    Commented Mar 22, 2017 at 16:05

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"Crick" to mean a really small river is a regional pronunciation of "creek". "Crick" to describe a muscle cramp is onomatopoeia -- it describes the sound of a joint adjusting which might cause the muscle to relax.

Regional dialects and words that sound like things are two reasons words with different meanings come into being.

Another way this happens is when root words come from different languages but sound alike. "Pan" is often related to bread in languages that come from Latin -- "pan dulce" (sweet bread), "panadaria" (bread store), "pain perdu" ("lost" bread, or French toast), "empanadas" (filled bread) -- but in Greek the same word means "all" so "panamerican" comes from that origin.

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