Definition
verbTo move slowly with the abdomen close to the ground.
verbTo grow across a surface rather than upwards.
Sentence Examples
The cat took advantage of the high grass to creep on the bird.
The sight made my flesh creep.
Sometimes it's fun to creep yourself out thinking about it.
Word Origin & History
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, krjupe, krypa, krype (“to creep, crawl”), Swedish krypa (“to creep, crawl”).
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
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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."
— 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit:
"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."
— 1994, “On the Huai River”, in A Drifting Boat: An Anthology of Chinese Zen Poetry, Fredonia, NY: White Pine Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 138:
"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; [...]."
— 1961 November, “More accelerations in the French winter timetables”, in Trains Illustrated, page 670:
"She crept up the stairs, keeping well into the side because she knew they were less likely to creak this way."
— 1967, Barbara Sleigh, Jessamy, Sevenoaks, Kent: Bloomsbury, published 1993, →ISBN, page 84:
"[…]guard his understanding from being imposed on by the willful or at least undesigned sophistry which creeps into most of the books of argument."
— 1706, John Locke, Of the Conduct of the Understanding, Fallacies: