• |
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. |
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To move slowly, feebly, or timorously, as from
unwillingness, fear, or weakness. |
• |
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. |
• |
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. |
• |
To move or behave with servility or exaggerated humility;
to fawn; as, a creeping sycophant. |
• |
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. |
• |
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. |
• |
To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a
submarine cable. |
• |
The act or process of creeping. |
• |
A distressing sensation, or sound, like that occasioned by
the creeping of insects. |
• |
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. |