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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Creep \Creep\ (kr[=e]p), verb (used with an object) [imp. {Crept} (kr[e^]pt) ({Crope} (kr[=o]p), Obs.); p. p. {Crept}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Creeping}.] [OE. crepen, creopen, AS. cre['o]pan; akin to D. kruipen, G. kriechen, Icel. krjupa, Sw. krypa, Dan. krybe. Cf. {Cripple}, {Crouch}.]
1. To move along the ground, or on any other surface, on the belly, as a worm or reptile; to move as a child on the hands and knees; to crawl.
Ye that walk The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep. --Milton.
2. To move slowly, feebly, or timorously, as from unwillingness, fear, or weakness.
The whining schoolboy . . . creeping, like snail, Unwillingly to school. --Shak.
Like a guilty thing, I creep. --Tennyson.
3. To move in a stealthy or secret manner; to move imperceptibly or clandestinely; to steal in; to insinuate itself or one's self; as, age creeps upon us.
The sophistry which creeps into most of the books of argument. --Locke.
Of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women. --2. Tim. iii. 6.
4. To slip, or to become slightly displaced; as, the collodion on a negative, or a coat of varnish, may creep in drying; the quicksilver on a mirror may creep.
5. To move or behave with servility or exaggerated humility; to fawn; as, a creeping sycophant.
To come as humbly as they used to creep. --Shak.
6. To grow, as a vine, clinging to the ground or to some other support by means of roots or rootlets, or by tendrils, along its length. ''Creeping vines.'' --Dryden.
7. To have a sensation as of insects creeping on the skin of the body; to crawl; as, the sight made my flesh creep. See {Crawl}, verb (used without an object), 4.
8. To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable.
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Definitions retrieved from local copies of the freely distributed DICT client/server software and databases. Click here for database copyright information. - KM |