creep

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   To move slowly, quietly, and carefully.

   He tried to creep past the sleeping guard without being seen.

2. 2
   verb

   To move very slowly with the body close to the ground.

   The lizard crept across the warm stone.

3. 3
   verb

   To increase slowly and gradually.

   Prices have been creeping up all year.

4. 4
   verb

   (of a plant) to grow and spread over a surface.

   Ivy creeps over the brick walls of the old house.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Creep is recorded from Old English and is related to cripple, a word of Germanic origin that may originally have meant someone who could only creep.

From Middle English crepen, from Old English crēopan (“to creep, crawl”), from Proto-West Germanic *kreupan, from Proto-Germanic *kreupaną (“to twist, creep”), from Proto-Indo-European *grewbʰ- (“to turn, wind”). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian krûpe (“to creep, crawl”), Central Franconian kruffe (“to creep, crawl”), Dutch kruipen (“to creep, crawl”), Low German krepen, krupen (“to creep, crawl”), Danish krybe (“to creep”), Faroese krúpa (“to creep”), Icelandic krjúpa (“to kneel down, to genuflect, to get down on one's knees”), Norwegian Bokmål krype (“to creep”), Norwegian Nynorsk krjupa,…

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External links

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