creeps

American

[kreeps] / krips /

noun

(used with a singular verb)

Veterinary Pathology. a disease of the bones in sheep and cattle that causes pain in walking, resulting from a deficiency of phosphorus in the diet.

creeps British

/ kriːps /

plural noun

informal a feeling of fear, repulsion, disgust, etc

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of creeps

So called from the effect on the animal's gait; creep, -s ³

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.

Evening creeps into the quiet, foggy hours of midnight.

From Literature

For a few, doubt creeps in, but most overcome their cognitive dissonance and reinflate the bubble of credulity that constitutes their comfort zone.

From Salon

This is still a relatively small number but Salesforce’s agent trajectory is an important metric as enterprise AI adoption creeps higher.

From Barron's

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

He hopes “A World Appears” encourages others to do the same: to observe what’s going on inside of them a little more, and when boredom, inevitably, creeps in to, perhaps, do nothing about it all.

From Los Angeles Times

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023