creep
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: krēp
ipa: /kɹiːp/
ipa: [kʰɹiːp]
rhymes: -iːp
Forms: form: creeps
form: creeping
form: crept
form: creeped
form: crope
form: crept
form: creeped
form: crope
form: cropen
Etymology: 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”). Cognate with West Frisian krippe, krûpe, West Frisian crjippa (“to creep”), Low German krepen and krupen, Dutch kruipen (“to creep, crawl”), Middle High German kriefen (“to creep”), Danish krybe (“to creep”), Norwegian krype (“to creep”), Swedish krypa (“to creep, crawl”), Icelandic krjúpa (“to stoop”).
The noun is derived from the verb.
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *grewbʰ-der.
Proto-Germanic *kreupaną
Proto-West Germanic *kreupan
Old English crēopan
Middle English crepen
English creep
Senses: examples: text: Lizards and snakes crept over the ground.
text: One evening, while the Rabbit was lying there alone, watching the ants that ran to and fro between his velvet paws in the grass, he saw two strange beings creep out of the tall bracken near him.
ref: 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit:
text: Reed tips face the dawn
shivering in the autumn wind
At P'u-k'ou the winter tide
has not yet come
Sunrise on the sandy bank
pocked with narrow caves
Pale frogs and dark crabs
creep without end.
ref: 1994, “On the Huai River”, in A Drifting Boat: An Anthology of Chinese Zen Poetry, Fredonia, NY: White Pine Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 138:
synonyms: crawl
glosses: To move slowly with the abdomen close to the ground.
glosses: To grow across a surface rather than upwards.
raw_tags: of plants
examples: text: He tried to creep past the guard without being seen.
text: Electrification of the Eastern Region main line from Strasbourg, incidentally, is steadily creeping nearer to Paris, and is now complete as far as Château Thierry, 59 miles away; [...].
ref: 1961 November, “More accelerations in the French winter timetables”, in Trains Illustrated, page 670:
text: She crept up the stairs, keeping well into the side because she knew they were less likely to creak this way.
ref: 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 84:
glosses: To move slowly and quietly in a particular direction.
examples: text: Prices have been creeping up all year.
glosses: To make small gradual changes, usually in a particular direction.
examples: text: Old age creeps upon us.
text: […]guard his understanding from being imposed on by the willful or at least undesigned sophistry which creeps into most of the books of argument.
ref: 1706, John Locke, Of the Conduct of the Understanding, Fallacies:
text: Paranoia strikes deep / Into your life it will creep / It starts when you're always afraid / Step out of line, the man come and take you away
ref: 1966 December, Stephen Stills, “For What It's Worth”performed by Buffalo Springfield:
glosses: To move in a stealthy or secret manner; to move imperceptibly or clandestinely; to steal in; to insinuate itself or oneself.
examples: text: The collodion on a negative, or a coat of varnish, may creep in drying.
text: The quicksilver on a mirror may creep.
glosses: To slip, or to become slightly displaced.
examples: text: A creeping sycophant.
text: To come as humbly as they used to creep / To holy altars.
ref: c. 1602, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iii]:
glosses: To move or behave with servility or exaggerated humility; to fawn.
examples: text: The sight made my flesh creep.
glosses: To have a sensation as of insects creeping on the skin of the body; to crawl.
glosses: To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable.
examples: text: Honey came in and she caught me red-handed / Creeping with the girl next door / Picture this we were both butt naked / Banging on the bathroom floor
ref: 2000, “It Wasn't Me”, performed by Shaggy:
text: I don't wanna know / If you're playin' me, keep it on the low / 'Cause my heart can't take it anymore / And if you're creepin', please don't let it show
ref: 2003, “I Don't Wanna Know”, performed by Mario Winans:
text: "Now you want the nigga out 'cause he creeping with his baby momma."
ref: 2016, Sherika Moore, Been Hustlen, →ISBN:
qualifier: African-American Vernacular
glosses: To covertly have sex (with a person other than one's primary partner); to cheat with.
Derived terms: becreep
blue creeping gromwell
creepage
creeper
creephole
creep in
creeping barberry
creeping buttercup
creeping Charlie
creeping crud
creeping determinism
creeping disease
creeping elegance
creeping eruption
creeping featurism
creeping fig
creeping gromwell
creeping Jenny
creeping Jesus
creepingly
creeping normality
creeping sage
creeping thistle
creeping thyme
creeping water bug
creeple
creepmouse
creep on
creep out
creep up
creep up on
creepy
creepy-crawly
give someone the creeps
increep
make someone's flesh creep
make someone's skin creep
mopery with intent to creep
noncreeping
outcreep
overcreep
undercreep
upcreep
Related terms: cripple