creep
/kɹiːp/ verb B2- To move slowly with the abdomen close to the ground. · Lizards and snakes crept over the ground.
- To grow across a surface rather than upwards.
- To move slowly and quietly in a particular direction. · He tried to creep past the guard without being seen.
- To make small gradual changes, usually in a particular direction. · Prices have been creeping up all year.
- To move in a stealthy or secret manner; to move imperceptibly or clandestinely; to insinuate itself or oneself. · Old age creeps upon us.
- To slip, or to become slightly displaced. · The collodion on a negative, or a coat of varnish, may creep in drying.· The quicksilver on a mirror may creep.
- To move or behave with servility or exaggerated humility; to fawn. · A creeping sycophant.
- To have a sensation as of insects creeping on the skin of the body; to crawl. · The sight made my flesh creep.
He/she/it creeps · Past crept · Past participle crept · -ing form creeping
Verb forms
- Base form
- creep
- He/she/it
- creeps
- Past
- crept
- Past participle
- crept
- -ing form
- creeping
An irregular verb: learn its past and past participle by heart.
Phrasal verbs and expressions
From the library
She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and crept a little way out of the wood to listen.
A soft pink crept over her cheek, and her eyes were kind and frank.
Darzee, the Tailorbird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the muskrat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice, but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting.
She had crept up behind him as he was talking, to make an end of him.
Other matches
Learn creep in real texts
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