crawl
Part of speech: verb
noun
Morphological type: simple
Topics: broadcasting
film
media
television
Etymology: From Middle English crawlen, crewlen, creulen, crallen, *cravelen, from Old Norse krafla (compare Danish kravle (“to crawl, creep”), Swedish kravla, kräla (“to creep, crawl”)), from Proto-Germanic *krablōną (compare Saterland Frisian krabbelje, Dutch krabbelen, German Low German krabbeln, German krabbeln), frequentative of *krabbōną (“to scratch, scrape”). Compare also Saterland Frisian krauelje (“to crawl, scuttle”), West Frisian kreauwelje (“to crawl”), Dutch krevelen, krieuwelen (“to crawl”), German Low German kribbeln, German kribbeln (“to creep, crawl, tingle”). See also crab, crabble.
Inflected forms:
form: crawls
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: crawling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: crawled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: crawled
pos: verb
tags: past
form: crawls
pos: noun
tags: plural
Senses:
gloss: To move by dragging one's body along or close to a surface, like a worm or insect, or on one's hands and knees, like a human baby.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Clutching my wounded side, I crawled back to the trench.
A VVorm finds vvhat it ſearches after, only by Feeling, as it cravvls from one thing to another. VVhereas a Man, having Eyes, ſees it in a Moment, all before him.
'Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,' he said. 'The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared.[…]'
The other species was a scale worm, Lepidonotus cirratus, which, when undisturbed, crawled rapidly about, reminding one of a centipede, but with the addition of numbers of hairy spines at each side and over-lapping scales.
[…] a large group of tornits approached, crawling over floor, wall and ceiling alike, their golden animal eyes glinting against the light of the occasional mushroom.
gloss: To move or progress slowly or laboriously, or with great difficulty (for example due to feebleness) or frequent stops.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The rush-hour traffic crawled around the bypass.
[…] and catching hold with his hand upon the rough cragges, […] he crawled up to the toppe thereof
While we Vnburthen'd crawle toward death.
Sickneese posteth to us, but crawleth from us.
Months and seasons crawled along,
gloss: To advance by guile and servility; to act in a servile manner, trying to please someone in order to gain favor.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: Don’t come crawling to me with your useless apologies!
Our hard-ruled king. Again, there is sprung up. An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer; one. Hath crawled into the favour of the king
gloss: To spread by extending tendrils, stems, or branches; to creep or trail (as a vine).
pos: verb
examples: The old house was covered in vines crawling over every available surface.
A little […] Nerve […] which crawls up and down the Coat of the Liver.
Passion-flowers, ipomaeas, and hibiscus crawled over every wall.
gloss: To swim using the crawl stroke.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
transitive
examples: I think I'll crawl instead of breaststroke.
I think I'll crawl the next hundred metres.
gloss: Followed by with: see crawl with.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To feel a swarming sensation; to have a sensation like that produced by insects crawling over one's body.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
examples: The horrible sight made my skin crawl.
[Their] dirtiness positively made me crawl.
gloss: To spread unevenly; to fail to be or remain evenly spread.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To move over (an area) on hands and knees, or by dragging the body along.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: The baby crawled the entire second floor.
[…] the nightmare horrors that crawled the reeking walls and floor.
His Slav features regarded me with the wooden indifference he would have shown to an insect crawling the wall.
Wilbur thought of Ronnie being up above. He crawled the ladder as fast as he could, […]
gloss: To move over (an area) slowly, with frequent stops.
pos: verb
tags: transitive
examples: They crawled the downtown bars.
"I used to crawl the Dungeon like you do, Bell, saving up money... But one day, I screwed verything up. Got thoroughly wrecked by a monster, and it ate my right arm."
Eric had crawled the downtown bar scene with these guys many nights, after gigs and back when they were all in college together. Eric liked hanging with them, because they were as comfortable hanging anywhere—sports bars; gay clubs; […]
One of the later Crawl trailers, the Nintendo Switch version, advertises its key gameplay in a sentence, “Crawl the dungeon while your friends possess the traps, beasts, and bosses against you” before later adopting the phrase […]
gloss: To visit (files or web sites) in order to index them for searching.
pos: verb
tags: Internet
transitive
examples: Yahoo Search has updated its Slurp Crawler to crawl websites faster and more efficiently.
gloss: The act of moving slowly on hands and knees, etc.
pos: noun
gloss: The act of sequentially visiting a series of similar establishments (i.e., a bar crawl).
pos: noun
gloss: A rapid swimming stroke with alternate overarm strokes and a fluttering kick.
pos: noun
gloss: A very slow pace.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: My computer has slowed down to a crawl since I installed that software package.
gloss: A piece of horizontally or vertically scrolling text overlaid on the main image.
pos: noun
examples: 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Gameshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/the-hunger-games,71293/
The opening crawl (and a stirring propaganda movie) informs us that “The Hunger Games” are an annual event in Panem, a North American nation divided into 12 different districts, each in service to the Capitol, a wealthy metropolis that owes its creature comforts to an oppressive dictatorship.
Synonyms: creep
inch
plod
scuttle
wriggle
Antonyms: run
walk
sprint
lope
Related words: trudge
sneak
Derived words: acrawl
backcrawl
becrawl
bellycrawl
crawlable
crawl-a-bottom
crawl before one can walk
crawl before one walks
crawler
crawl-in
crawlingly
crawlingness
crawling peg
crawl into a hole
crawl out of the woodwork
crawl over each other
crawlsome
crawl up someone's ass
crawlway
crawly
cross-crawl
flesh-crawling
kerb crawling
make someone's skin crawl
newscrawl
outcrawl
recrawl
skin-crawling
upcrawl
wallcrawl
army crawl
Australian crawl
back crawl
bear crawl
crab crawl
crawl control
crawl space
dot crawl
dungeon crawl
front crawl
hex crawl
high crawl
kerb crawl
leopard crawl
news crawl
pub crawl
tiger crawl
urban crawl
zombie crawl
Translations:
lang: Bulgarian
word: гъмжа
roman: gǎmža
lang: Finnish
word: vilistä
lang: French
word: grouiller de
lang: French
word: grouiller
lang: German
word: wimmeln
lang: Hungarian
word: hemzseg
lang: Italian
word: brulicare
lang: Russian
word: кише́ть
roman: kišétʹ
lang: Spanish
word: estar de cuajado
lang: Spanish
word: estar cuajado
lang: Tamil
word: ஊர்
roman: ūr
lang: Bulgarian
word: пълзя́
roman: pǎlzjá
lang: Finnish
word: kontata läpi
lang: Greek
word: μπουσουλάω
roman: bousouláo
lang: Hungarian
word: négykézláb mászkál
lang: Irish
word: bí ag lámhacán
lang: Polish
word: raczkować
lang: Polish
word: czworakować
lang: Portuguese
word: engatinhar
lang: Scottish Gaelic
word: èalaidh
lang: Tamil
word: தவழ்
roman: tavaḻ