creep
/kɹiːp/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.84 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To move in a stealthy or secret manner; to move imperceptibly or clandestinely; to insinuate itself or oneself.
Example Sentences
- "Lizards and snakes crept over the ground."
- "One evening, while the Rabbit was lying there alone, watching the ants that ran to and fro between his velvet paws in the grass, he saw two strange beings creep out of the tall bracken near him."
- "Reed tips face the dawn shivering in the autumn wind At P'u-k'ou the winter tide has not yet come Sunrise on the sandy bank pocked with narrow caves Pale frogs and dark crabs creep without end."
- "He tried to creep past the guard without being seen."
- "Electrification of the Eastern Region main line from Strasbourg, incidentally, is steadily creeping nearer to Paris, and is now complete as far as Château Thierry, 59 miles away; [...]."
- "She crept up the stairs, keeping well into the side because she knew they were less likely to creak this way."
Etymology
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”). Cognates Cognate with West Frisian krûpe (“to creep, crawl”), Central Franconian kruffe (“to creep, crawl”), Dutch kruipen (“to creep, crawl”), Low German krepen, krupen (“to creep, crawl”), Danish krybe (“to creep”), Faroese krúpa (“to creep”), Icelandic krjúpa (“to kneel down, to genuflect, to get down on one's knees”), Norwegian Bokmål krype (“to creep”), Norwegian Nynorsk krjupa, krjupe, krypa, krype (“to creep, crawl”), Swedish krypa (“to creep, crawl”). The noun is derived from the verb. Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *grewbʰ-der. Proto-Germanic *kreupaną Proto-West Germanic *kreupan Old English crēopan Middle English crepen English creep
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: crepen, crēopan, *kreupan, *kreupaną, *grewbʰ-