Creep (krēp), v. t.
[imp. Crept (kr&ebreve;pt) (Crope
(krōp), Obs.); p. p. Crept;
p. pr. & vb. n. Creeping.] [OE.
crepen, creopen, AS. creópan; akin to
D. kruipen, G. kriechen, Icel. krjupa, Sw.
krypa, Dan. krybe. Cf. Cripple,
Crouch.] 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.
Ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep.
Milton.
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. 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. 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. 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. 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. "Creeping vines."
Dryden.
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.
8. To drag in deep water with creepers,
as for recovering a submarine cable.
Creep, n. 1.
The act or process of creeping.
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. (Mining) 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.
