creep

American  

[kreep] / krip /

verb (used without object)

• creeps,
  present (3rd person singular)
• crept,
  past participle,  past
• creeping
  present participle

1. to move slowly with the body close to the ground, as a reptile or an insect, or a person on hands and knees.

2. to approach slowly, imperceptibly, or stealthily (often followed byup ).

   We crept up and peeked over the wall.

3. to move or advance slowly or gradually.

   The automobile crept up the hill. Time just seems to creep along on these hot summer days.

   Synonyms:

   poke, dawdle, crawl, inch

4. 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.

5. to enter or become evident inconspicuously, gradually, or insidiously (often followed by in orinto: ) The writer's personal bias occasionally creeps into the account.

6. to move or behave timidly or servilely.

7. to grow along the ground, a wall, etc., as a plant.

8. to advance or develop gradually so as to infringe on or supplant something else.

9. Slang.

   1. to flirt with or make persistent sexual advances toward someone (often followed byon ).

      He creeps on all the women he meets.

   2. to cheat on one’s sexual partner.

      He caught his wife creepin' with the guy who lives next-door.

10. 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.

11. Slang. to suddenly intrude into someone’s photograph as it is being taken.

    Who’s that creeping in the background of the picture?

12. to slip, slide, or shift gradually; become displaced.

13. (of a metal object) to become deformed, as under continuous loads or at high temperatures.

14. Nautical. to grapple (usually followed byfor ).

    The ships crept for their anchor chains.

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verb (used with object)

• creeps,
  present (3rd person singular)
• crept,
  past participle,  past
• creeping
  present participle

1. Slang. to follow persistently or stealthily, especially online.

   I’ve been creeping her blog and found some great recipes.

2. Archaic. to creep along or over.

noun

• creeps
  plural

1. an act or instance of creeping.

   It seems as if time has slowed to a creep.

2. Slang. an obnoxious, disturbingly eccentric, deviant, or painfully introverted person.

3. Slang. an intelligence or counterintelligence agent; spy.

4. Slang. creeper.

5. a gradual or inconspicuous increase, advance, change, or development.

   Avoid jargon creep in your writing.

   We are seeing the steady creep of consumerism.

6. Geology.

   1. the gradual movement downhill of loose soil, rock, gravel, etc.; solifluction.

   2. the slow deformation of solid rock resulting from constant stress applied over long periods.

7. Mechanics. the gradual, permanent deformation of a body produced by a continued application of heat or stress.

8. a grappling iron; grapnel.

9. Firearms. the slack in a trigger mechanism before it releases the firing pin.

10. creep feeder.

11. 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

1. creep out to cause to experience uneasiness or disgust: I was so creeped out that I had to sleep with the lights on.

   She’s been getting crank calls that are creeping her out.

   I was so creeped out that I had to sleep with the lights on.

idioms

1. make one's flesh creep, to be frightening or repellent; cause one to experience uneasiness.

   The eerie stories made our flesh creep.

creep British  

/ kriːp /

verb

1. to crawl with the body near to or touching the ground

2. to move slowly, quietly, or cautiously

3. to act in a servile way; fawn; cringe

4. to move or slip out of place, as from pressure or wear

5. (of plants) to grow along the ground or over rocks, producing roots, suckers, or tendrils at intervals

6. (of a body or substance) to become permanently deformed as a result of an applied stress, often when combined with heating

7. to develop gradually

   creeping unrest

8. to have the sensation of something crawling over the skin

9. (of metals) to undergo slow plastic deformation

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noun

1. the act of creeping or a creeping movement

2. slang a person considered to be obnoxious or servile

3. the continuous permanent deformation of a body or substance as a result of stress or heat

4. geology the gradual downwards movement of loose rock material, soil, etc, on a slope

5. a slow relative movement of two adjacent parts, structural components, etc

6. slow plastic deformation of metals

creep More Idioms  

More idioms and phrases containing creep

• make one's flesh creep
• the creeps

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Synonym Usage

See crawl ¹.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• outcreep
  verb (used with object)
• noncreeping
  adjective
• uncreeping
  adjective
• creepingly
  adverb

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• creeps
  plural

Participles

• creeping
  present
• crept
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• creep
  simple
• creeps
  simple
• have crept
  perfect
• has crept
  perfect
• am creeping
  progressive
• are creeping
  progressive
• is creeping
  progressive
• have been creeping
  perfect progressive
• has been creeping
  perfect progressive

Past

• crept
  simple
• had crept
  perfect
• was creeping
  progressive
• were creeping
  progressive
• had been creeping
  perfect progressive

Future

• will creep
  simple
• will have crept
  perfect
• will be creeping
  progressive
• will have been creeping
  perfect progressive

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.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

creep creeps crept creeping

But just then, a piercing pink light appears outside, and a low, opaque mist begins to creep through the seams of your tent.

From Salon ● Aug. 17, 2026

Avoid lifestyle creep, where seeing more money in the checking account is tied to the feeling of more freedom to spend.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026

At the same time, the level of gray-zone or hybrid war continues to creep up without triggering a strong public reaction.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 3, 2026

An antidote to August ennui: When Byard Duncan began to feel the creep of a midlife crisis, he realized that desperate times call for farcical measures.

From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2026

I drop my gaze from her blue eyes, which remind me of swimming pool water on a sunny day...and kind of creep me out a little.

From "Fast Pitch" by Nic Stone

“At a time when working families are struggling the most, we need to get creeps out of office,” she said.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 17, 2026

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

The pressure creeps up gradually, almost imperceptible day to day, tormenting inhabitants with uncertainty as they watch their city close down around them.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 12, 2026

We’ve got two big threads this week: creeps in the House of Representatives and blasphemy.

From Slate ● Apr. 18, 2026

“See, no serpent, no Satan creeps in this Eden.”

From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein

One morning, the two women crept out and Terekh drove past charred vehicles at top speed to reach Kyiv.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 15, 2026

"It is almost as though it's crept up on us and a lot of people haven't really thought about what's happening," he told the BBC.

From BBC ● Aug. 8, 2026

Then I noticed a footprint that I didn’t make, at least not directly, had crept back up onto Page 1 of the search results.

From Slate ● Aug. 6, 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

Eventually, the miller fell asleep in a pile of straw, and the moment he did, Opal crept over to me with a desperate look in her eyes.

From "Rump: The (Fairly) True Story of Rumpelstilskin" by Liesl Shurtliff

But amid the hotels, bars and restaurants, the American military is creeping back in—albeit less out in the open.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 19, 2026

The proportion of top grades across the three nations combined has been slightly creeping up since that drop in 2023.

From BBC ● Aug. 13, 2026

Long-end Treasury yields have been creeping higher for months, driven by several factors that could prove deleterious to the bond market’s long-term health.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 12, 2026

The more immediate issues for Infantino’s rivals are the two deadlines creeping up in the next three months.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

“What can you expect, when you take one’s breath away, creeping in like a burglar, and letting cats out of bags like that? Get up, you ridiculous boy, and tell me all about it.”

From "Little Women" by Louisa May Alcott

Related Words

• glide
• inch
• lurk
• slink
• slither
• snake
• sneak
• tiptoe
• wriggle