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CREEPING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A slow mode of locomotion on hands and knees or dragging the body
Example:
the traffic moved at a creep
Synonyms:
crawl; crawling; creep; creeping
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("creeping" is a kind of...):
locomotion; travel (self-propelled movement)
Derivation:
creep (move slowly; in the case of people or animals with the body near the ground)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb creep
Context examples:
If it had been Silver and his lads that were now creeping in on them, not a soul would have seen daybreak.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Suddenly the door opened, and a woman as old as the hills, who supported herself on crutches, came creeping out.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
On the instant my flesh was creeping and crawling from the harsh contact.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
The first and the mildest course is, by keeping the island hovering over such a town, and the lands about it, whereby he can deprive them of the benefit of the sun and the rain, and consequently afflict the inhabitants with dearth and diseases: and if the crime deserve it, they are at the same time pelted from above with great stones, against which they have no defence but by creeping into cellars or caves, while the roofs of their houses are beaten to pieces.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
One by one the mice came creeping back, and Toto did not bark again, although he tried to get out of the Woodman's arms, and would have bitten him had he not known very well he was made of tin.
(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)
It was perfect art. Form triumphed over substance, if triumph it could be called where the last conceivable atom of substance had found expression in so perfect construction as to make Martin's head swim with delight, to put passionate tears into his eyes, and to send chills creeping up and down his back.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot out the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very small latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller by the growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick over the portion of the house wall in which it was set.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Then creeping up to me and making a trumpet of his hand, he whispered into my ear again so gently that it was all that I could do to distinguish the words: The least sound would be fatal to our plans.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Advise was his word, but it was the advice of absolute power, and she had only to rise, and, with Mr. Crawford's very cordial adieus, pass quietly away; stopping at the entrance-door, like the Lady of Branxholm Hall, one moment and no more, to view the happy scene, and take a last look at the five or six determined couple who were still hard at work; and then, creeping slowly up the principal staircase, pursued by the ceaseless country-dance, feverish with hopes and fears, soup and negus, sore-footed and fatigued, restless and agitated, yet feeling, in spite of everything, that a ball was indeed delightful.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
A cold sweat stood on her forehead, the manuscript fell from her hand, and groping her way to the bed, she jumped hastily in, and sought some suspension of agony by creeping far underneath the clothes.
(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)
