creeping : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: creeping	by the DICT Development Group
3 results for creeping
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
creeping n a slow mode of locomotion on hands and knees or dragging the body; "a crawl was all that the injured man could manage"; "the traffic moved at a creep" Synonym(s): crawl, crawling, creep, creeping
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Creep \Creep\ (kr[emac]p), v. t. [imp. {Crept} (kr[ecr]pt) ({Crope} (kr[omac]p), Obs.); p. p. {Crept}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Creeping}.] [OE. crepen, creopen, AS. cre[oacute]pan; 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. [bd]Creeping vines.[b8] --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.
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Creeping \Creep"ing\, a. 1. Crawling, or moving close to the ground. [bd]Every creeping thing.[b8] --Gen. vi. 20. 2. Growing along, and clinging to, the ground, or to a wall, etc., by means of rootlets or tendrils. Casements lined with creeping herbs. --Cowper. {Ceeping crowfoot} (Bot.), a plant, the {Ranunculus repens}. {Creeping snowberry}, an American plant ({Chiogenes hispidula}) with white berries and very small round leaves having the flavor of wintergreen.