creep
Americanverb (used without object)
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creeps,
present (3rd person singular)
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crept,
past participle, past
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creeping
present participle
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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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creeps,
present (3rd person singular)
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crept,
past participle, past
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creeping
present participle
-
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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creeps
plural
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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:
Climate change and environmental disturbance have aided an increasing creep of the territories ticks inhabit—along with the viruses, bacteria, and pathogens they carry.
From Slate ● Aug. 6, 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
Their unusual atomic organization can give them exceptional strength, high melting temperatures, and strong resistance to creep, which is the slow deformation of a material under prolonged heat and stress.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 31, 2026
As the threat of artificial intelligence continues to creep into the music industry, major record labels are proposing new guidelines for how music generated by artificial intelligence should be treated on the charts.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 30, 2026
The three intrepid dogs remove their helmets and stealthily creep closer.
From "Dog Squad" by Chris Grabenstein
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
When Dr. Becky says to greet guilt that creeps in for not knowing this stuff, I do: “Hi, Guilt.”
From Slate ● May 10, 2026
As artificial intelligence creeps further into the workplace, employees risk getting left behind if they don’t start embracing the technology.
From MarketWatch ● Apr. 11, 2026
I thought of the chicken bones in a calabash bowl left on our doorstep by Tata Kuvudundu some weeks back, which had given me the creeps.
From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver
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
England built an early lead before Australia crept their way back to have the advantage shortly after halfway.
From BBC ● Jul. 30, 2026
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
So, the night before the wedding, the girl had crept out of bed carefully, holding her breath as she crossed the creaking floorboards.
From "Night Owls" by A.R. Vishny
But a creeping loss of purchasing power coming from multiple directions can catch them by surprise.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 29, 2026
However, since early July oil prices have been "creeping upwards until the middle of the month then stagnating".
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
“While bears beat back the bullish test higher, however, searing heat will return early next week, particularly in Texas, while Corpus Christi LNG feedgas nominations are creeping up.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
But the creeping cost of food this summer has prompted some frustration, even as the company has sought to court locals with ticket deals to offset a decline in international tourists visiting its U.S. parks.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2026
We were there enjoying the party when an unsettledness started creeping through the crowd.
From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson
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.
