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more about creep
creep |
4 definitions found From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Creep \Creep\ (kr[=e]p), v. t. [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}, v. i., 4. 8. To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable. From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]: Creep \Creep\, n. 1. The act or process of creeping. 2. A distressing sensation, or sound, like that occasioned by the creeping of insects. A creep of undefinable horror. --Blackwood's Mag. Out of the stillness, with gathering creep, Like rising wind in leaves. --Lowell. 3. (Mining) A slow rising of the floor of a gallery, occasioned by the pressure of incumbent strata upon the pillars or sides; a gradual movement of mining ground. From WordNet r 1.6 [wn]: creep n 1: someone unpleasantly strange or eccentric [syn: {weirdo}, {weirdie}, {weirdy}, {spook}, {schmuck}] 2: a slow longitudinal movement or deformation 3: a pen that is fenced so that young animals can enter but adults cannot 4: a slow creeping mode of locomotion (on hands and knees or dragging the body); "a crawl was all that the injured man could manage"; "the traffic moved at a creep" [syn: {crawl}, {crawling}, {creeping}] v 1: move slowly; in the case of people or animals with the body near the ground; "The crocodile was crawling along the riverbed" [syn: {crawl}] 2: to go stealthily or furtively: "..stead of sneaking around spying on the Dronk house''." [syn: {sneak}, {mouse}, {steal}, {pussyfoot}] 3: grow in such a way as to cover (a building, for example); of plants such as ivy [syn: {grow over}] 4: show submission or fear [syn: {fawn}, {crawl}, {cringe}, {cower}, {grovel}] From Jargon File (4.2.3, 23 NOV 2000) [jargon]: creep v. To advance, grow, or multiply inexorably. In hackish usage this verb has overtones of menace and silliness, evoking the creeping horrors of low-budget monster movies.
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