creep
pronunciation
How to pronounce creep in British English:
UK [kriːp]
How to pronounce creep in American English:
US [kriːp]
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- Noun:
- someone unpleasantly strange or eccentric
- a slow longitudinal movement or deformation
- a pen that is fenced so that young animals can enter but adults cannot
- a slow creeping mode of locomotion (on hands and knees or dragging the body)
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- Verb:
- move slowly; in the case of people or animals with the body near the ground
- to go stealthily or furtively
- grow in such a way as to cover (a building, for example)
- show submission or fear
Word Origin
- creep
- creep: [OE] Creep is an ancient verb, which has been traced back to Indo–European *greub-. This was the source also of Dutch kriupen and Swedish krypa ‘creep’, and of Lithuanian grubineti ‘stumble’, and links have been suggested with English cripple. The related Indo-European *greug- produced German kriechen ‘creep’.=> cripple
- creep (v.)
- Old English creopan "to creep" (class II strong verb; past tense creap, past participle cropen), from Proto-Germanic *kreupan (cognates: Old Frisian kriapa, Middle Dutch crupen, Old Norse krjupa "to creep"), perhaps from a PIE root *g(e)r- "crooked" [Watkins]. Related: Crept; creeping.
- creep (n.)
- "a creeping motion," 1818, from creep (v.). Meaning "despicable person" is 1935, American English slang, perhaps from earlier sense of "sneak thief" (1914). Creeper "a gilded rascal" is recorded from c. 1600, and the word also was used of certain classes of thieves, especially those who robbed customers in brothels. The creeps "a feeling of dread or revulsion" first attested 1849, in Dickens.
Example
- 1. The danger remains of western military mission creep .
- 2. More and more newly created bad data will creep into the system .
- 3. Said a skunk to a tube-rose , " see how swiftly I run , while you cannot walk nor even creep . "
- 4. They creep along in miles long traffic jams on the interstate .
- 5. So marion 's motive is love , and her victim is a creep .