creep

Meanings

Verb

• To move slowly with the abdomen close to the ground.
• Of plants, to grow across a surface rather than upwards.
• To move slowly and quietly in a particular direction.
• To make small gradual changes, usually in a particular direction.
• To move in a stealthy or secret manner; to move imperceptibly or clandestinely; to steal in; to insinuate itself or oneself.
• To slip, or to become slightly displaced.
• To move or behave with servility or exaggerated humility; to fawn.
• To have a sensation as of insects creeping on the skin of the body; to crawl.
• To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable.
• To covertly have sex (with a person other than one's primary partner); to cheat with.

Noun

• The movement of something that creeps (like worms or snails)
• A relatively small gradual change, variation or deviation (from a planned value) in a measure.
• A slight displacement of an object: the slight movement of something
• The gradual expansion or proliferation of something beyond its original goals or boundaries, considered negatively.
• In sewn books, the tendency of pages on the inside of a quire to stand out farther than those on the outside of it.
• An increase in strain with time; the gradual flow or deformation of a material under stress.
• The imperceptible downslope movement of surface rock.
• Someone unpleasantly strange or eccentric.
• A frightening and/or disconcerting person, especially one who gives the speaker chills.
• A barrier with small openings used to keep large animals out while allowing smaller animals to pass through.

Origin

• 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.