Abstract
The main purpose of the present study was to determine whether there was any significant correlation between high and low levels of creativity in male and female Iranian EFL learners and guessing the meaning of unknown words by using etymology. To this aim, 161 Iranian EFL intermediate learners were selected for the purpose of this study, and were asked to respond to the creativity questionnaire in order to determine the creativity levels of them. Consequently, 68 participants whose scores were between 50 to 75 (low creativity) and 85 to 100 (high creativity) were selected for the purpose of this study. In order to know whether the participants were familiar with the meaning of words or not, a vocabulary test was administered to them. Finally, the participants were given an etymology test constructed by the researchers in order to check the guessing power of the participants by using their etymology knowledge. Applying non-parametric Pearson correlation, the results revealed that the high and low levels of Iranian EFL learners’ creativity and guessing the meaning of unknown words by etymology were correlated. The results have implications for language teachers and materials developers.