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Entry 11 senses · 2 variants Webster, 1913

Creep

/(krēp)/ · IPA /kɹiːp/
01 v. t. 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.
imp. Crept; p. p. Crept; p. pr. & vb. n. Creeping
  1. 1.
    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.[Obs.]
    “Ye that walk The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep.” — Milton.
  2. 2.
    To move slowly, feebly, or timorously, as from unwillingness, fear, or weakness.
    “The whining schoolboy . . . creeping, like snail, Unwillingly to school.” — Shak.
    “Like a guilty thing, I creep.” — Tennyson.
  3. 3.
    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.
    “The sophistry which creeps into most of the books of argument.” — Locke.
    “Of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women.” — 2. Tim. iii. 6.
  4. 4.
    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.
  5. 5.
    To move or behave with servility or exaggerated humility; to fawn; as, a creeping sycophant.
    “To come as humbly as they used to creep.” — Shak.
  6. 6.
    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.
  7. 7.
    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. See: Crawl
  8. 8.
    To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable.
02 n. The act or process of creeping.
  1. 1.
    The act or process of creeping.
  2. 2.
    A distressing sensation, or sound, like that occasioned by the creeping of insects.
    “A creep of undefinable horror.” — Blackwood's Mag.
    “Out of the stillness, with gathering creep, Like rising wind in leaves.” — Lowell.
  3. 3.
    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.(Mining)