creep
Americanverb (used without object)
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to move slowly with the body close to the ground, as a reptile or an insect, or a person on hands and knees.
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to approach slowly, imperceptibly, or stealthily (often followed byup ).
We crept up and peeked over the wall.
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to move or advance slowly or gradually.
The automobile crept up the hill. Time just seems to creep along on these hot summer days.
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to sneak up behind someone or without someone's knowledge (usually followed byup on ).
The prisoners crept up on the guard and knocked him out.
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to enter or become evident inconspicuously, gradually, or insidiously (often followed by in orinto: ) The writer's personal bias occasionally creeps into the account.
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to move or behave timidly or servilely.
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to grow along the ground, a wall, etc., as a plant.
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to advance or develop gradually so as to infringe on or supplant something else.
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Slang.
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to flirt with or make persistent sexual advances toward someone (often followed byon ).
He creeps on all the women he meets.
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to cheat on one’s sexual partner.
He caught his wife creepin' with the guy who lives next-door.
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Slang. to follow someone persistently or stealthily, as on a social media website (often followed byon ).
He spends a lot of time creeping on her Facebook profile.
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Slang. to suddenly intrude into someone’s photograph as it is being taken.
Who’s that creeping in the background of the picture?
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to slip, slide, or shift gradually; become displaced.
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(of a metal object) to become deformed, as under continuous loads or at high temperatures.
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Nautical. to grapple (usually followed byfor ).
The ships crept for their anchor chains.
verb (used with object)
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Slang. to follow persistently or stealthily, especially online.
I’ve been creeping her blog and found some great recipes.
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Archaic. to creep along or over.
noun
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an act or instance of creeping.
It seems as if time has slowed to a creep.
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Slang. an obnoxious, disturbingly eccentric, deviant, or painfully introverted person.
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Slang. an intelligence or counterintelligence agent; spy.
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Slang. creeper.
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a gradual or inconspicuous increase, advance, change, or development.
Avoid jargon creep in your writing.
We are seeing the steady creep of consumerism.
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Geology.
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the gradual movement downhill of loose soil, rock, gravel, etc.; solifluction.
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the slow deformation of solid rock resulting from constant stress applied over long periods.
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Mechanics. the gradual, permanent deformation of a body produced by a continued application of heat or stress.
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a grappling iron; grapnel.
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Firearms. the slack in a trigger mechanism before it releases the firing pin.
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Informal. the creeps, a sensation of horror, fear, disgust, etc., suggestive of the feeling induced by something crawling over the skin.
That horror movie gave me the creeps.
verb phrase
idioms
verb
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to crawl with the body near to or touching the ground
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to move slowly, quietly, or cautiously
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to act in a servile way; fawn; cringe
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to move or slip out of place, as from pressure or wear
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(of plants) to grow along the ground or over rocks, producing roots, suckers, or tendrils at intervals
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(of a body or substance) to become permanently deformed as a result of an applied stress, often when combined with heating
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to develop gradually
creeping unrest
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to have the sensation of something crawling over the skin
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(of metals) to undergo slow plastic deformation
noun
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the act of creeping or a creeping movement
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slang a person considered to be obnoxious or servile
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the continuous permanent deformation of a body or substance as a result of stress or heat
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geology the gradual downwards movement of loose rock material, soil, etc, on a slope
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a slow relative movement of two adjacent parts, structural components, etc
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slow plastic deformation of metals
Synonym Usage
See crawl 1.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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creepsimple
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creepssimple
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have creptperfect
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has creptperfect
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am creepingprogressive
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are creepingprogressive
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is creepingprogressive
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have been creepingperfect progressive
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has been creepingperfect progressive
Past
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creptsimple
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had creptperfect
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was creepingprogressive
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were creepingprogressive
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had been creepingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of creep
First recorded before 900; Middle English crepen, Old English crēopan; cognate with Dutch kruipen, Old Norse krjūpa
Explanation
A beetle creeps along the ground. Moving slowly and silently, it creeps up on you. When you feel the touch of tiny insect legs on your skin, you shudder, because bugs give you the creeps. Creep has a long history and a subtle variety of meanings. In its earliest recorded usage, it described the movement of legless creatures like snakes and worms. By the sixteenth century, creep meant "move slowly" and "move with stealth" like when you creep up to your brother to startle him. Charles Dickens coined the phrase, the creeps, to suggest the shuddering sensation you get when you see something gross and scary. A creep is a person who makes your skin crawl, a meaning that has been used in American English since 1935.
Vocabulary lists containing creep
"Of Mice and Men"
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Common Five-letter Words for Wordle, List 4
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Pace Yourself: Synonyms for "Slow"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Traders are also growing increasingly nervous that renewed strikes between US and Iranian forces could reignite inflation as oil prices creep higher.
From Barron's ● Jul. 23, 2026
Sinner showed a degree of vulnerability early in the tournament, needing five sets to creep past Serbia's Miomir Kecmanovic, but has grown in confidence and quality over the fortnight.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2026
Instead, Coffin sketches his idea of a Hollywood creep, the phony let’s-do-lunch schmoozer, with Jeff Bridges voicing a set of twin studio moguls who play bad boss/backhanded boss.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 1, 2026
Back-to-school shopping creep ramped up even more in recent years as shoppers navigated prolonged inflation and supply-chain shocks, such as last year’s tariffs and this year’s rising oil prices.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 21, 2026
Out the corner of my eye, I saw a shadowy shape ooze from what was left of the broken bottle on the ground and creep along the grass.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
Many pretended it wasn't happening at all, but that's harder to do as the front line creeps closer to the city.
From BBC ● Jun. 20, 2026
We’ve got two big threads this week: creeps in the House of Representatives and blasphemy.
From Slate ● Apr. 18, 2026
“We’re leaning towards entertainment,” Jacobs says, before a wry smile creeps onto his face.
From Salon ● Mar. 27, 2026
Fittingly, the sound creates a crack in one of the home’s windows: Via that fissure, the unfolding apocalypse creeps into their lives.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 4, 2026
Woo jumps off my shoulder and creeps toward Autumn.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
Certainly, I felt a bit like Odysseus as I crept — drained, disoriented and trailing popcorn crumbs like Ithican sand — out into the sun.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 24, 2026
Nerves crept in, and as the match entered extra time, Spain began to fear that this final would go down as un robo, a robbery.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 19, 2026
The diminished value of the cover letter also reflects the doubt that’s crept into the job-search process.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 15, 2026
"Because that's the work of democracy: being neighbourly, taking care of public spaces. How do we love enjoying each other, shaking out of the isolation and division that have crept too deeply into our lives."
From BBC ● Jun. 18, 2026
We crept quietly down the darkened halls, but they were just as empty as any other night that we’d snuck out to practice.
From "Glitch" by Laura Martin
They do reflect investors’ creeping doubts about the government’s future ability to pay, though.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 22, 2026
That reprieve was short-lived, however, and the U.S. average retail gasoline price has been creeping back toward $4 a gallon.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 18, 2026
The steep price rises for European holidays may have slowed but they're still creeping up, TravelSupermarket data suggests.
From BBC ● Jul. 7, 2026
“It goes by so fast,” Pegula acknowledged of the creeping sense of urgency in pursuit of her first major title.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 4, 2026
“Do you miss your friend greatly?” asked Mademoiselle Reisz one morning as she came creeping up behind Edna, who had just left her cottage on her way to the beach.
From "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
