(v. t.) 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.
(v. t.) To move slowly, feebly, or timorously, as from unwillingness, fear, or weakness.
(v. t.) 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.
(v. t.) 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.
(v. t.) To move or behave with servility or exaggerated humility; to fawn; as, a creeping sycophant.
(v. t.) 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.
(v. t.) 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.
(v. i.) To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable.
(n.) The act or process of creeping.
(n.) A distressing sensation, or sound, like that occasioned by the creeping of insects.
(n.) A slow rising of the floor of a gallery, occasioned by the pressure of incumbent strata upon the pillars or sides; a gradual movement of mining ground.
Example Sentences:
(1) The estimated Ki's for inhibition of myocardial creep currents were 3 microM for dodecylamin, 10 micron for quinacrine, and 4 microM for 3',4'-dichlorobenzamil.
(2) As we walk away from the restaurant, he looks up an interview (with himself) on his iPhone and announces his musical credentials: "Yup, two Radiohead songs in both 'Clueless' and 'Romeo and Juliet', back when all anybody knew was 'Creep'.
(3) Diarrhoea occurred in some animals after weaning, but did not occur in pigs which did not have access to creep food before weaning.
(4) The osteoconductive properties were promising; creeping bone formation could be observed, although no complete fusion had been achieved at 24 weeks.
(5) Years ahead of its time, it saw each song presented theatrically, the musicians concealed in the wings (although Bowie said that they kept creeping on to the stage, literally unable to resist the spotlight) and with Bowie performing on a cherry-picker and on a giant hand, both of which kept breaking down.
(6) These differences in creep force can be qualitatively accounted for by differences in sarcomere dynamics.
(7) One-year follow-up studies showed that 2 patients with a malignant gastric tumour had recurrence 9 months after the combined treatment; I patient has recurrence in the same terms after similar treatment of creeping benign adenoma.
(8) However, the PTFE suture did exhibit some viscoelastic characteristics (hysteresis and creep) that begin to approach the chordal behavior.
(9) [ View the story "Creeping Sharia - A snapshot" on Storify ] • Follow Comment is free on Twitter @commentisfree • This article was amended on 17 April 2012.
(10) While the protesters' demands are varied, their unanimous target is Beijing – its creeping influence over the city's boardrooms, newspapers, classrooms and courts.
(11) The tetrapeptide Gly-His-Arg-Pro at comparable concentrations decreased the modulus and increased the creep to a lesser degree; when combined with Gly-Pro-Arg-Pro it enhanced the effectiveness of the latter.
(12) This type of ventilation brought about changes in viscous properties, measured during creep and oscillation of the mucus, which would be expected to reduce mucus clearance in vivo.
(13) But fresh evidence that waiting times are creeping up, despite David Cameron's pledge to keep them low, has forced Lansley to change tack and impose an extra treatment directive on the NHS.
(14) His free-kick was decent, he whipped the ball around the ball, but it was half-cleared before it could creep inside the far post.
(15) Since prosthetic meniscal replacement may be performed in the setting of normal articular cartilage, a prosthesis will be required to match the exact joint configuration, induce the same lubricity, produce the same coefficient of friction, and absorb and dampen the same joint forces (without incurring significant creep or abrasion) as does the normal meniscus.
(16) Calcification was slightly heavier and the degree of creep was significantly greater in the mitral position.
(17) The effect outside Syria’s borders, of refugees and the creep of global terror, continues to raise the stakes.
(18) Diacridines linked by a rigid, polar but neutral dicarbamoylpyrazole chain retain slow exchange kinetics, have a greatly reduced potential "creep rate", and possess good in vitro potency and significant in vivo antileukemic activity.
(19) Acceleration of the creep test by increasing the test temperature permits an estimation whether the creep properties of a material are within the required limits within a week.
(20) The lessons of creeping loss of control made us decide to go private again if we possibly could.
Creepy
Definition:
(a.) Crawly; having or producing a sensation like that caused by insects creeping on the skin.
Example Sentences:
(1) I have these words for the authorities: [it is a] creepy, crooked, evil way."
(2) (And if that sounds creepy, that’s because it sort of is.
(3) Whether Creepy Uncle Sam and his creepier backers will succeed in bringing down the Affordable Care Act (ACA) remains to be seen, but the prognosis is not good.
(4) Has anyone thought about how creepy this could get when actually put into practice?
(5) The monsters in Doctor Sleep are promisingly creepy: polyester-clad senior citizens who turn out to be child-torturing paranormals with fangs beneath their dentures.
(6) (After Kadyrov renamed the street last year in creepy homage to Russia's prime minister, Estemirova refused to even walk on it, her daughter Lana recalls.)
(7) Archer's creepy Pecksniffian pals If there's one thing worse than Jeffrey Archer, it is the erstwhile friends of Jeffrey Archer.
(8) It’s for all the men who don’t know which of their kind and magnanimous actions could be interpreted as sexist, creepy or inappropriate: Telling a junior female staff member that she has “piercing eyes” is a sexist act.
(9) Two old men are spying on a young woman bathing, but Gentileschi heightens the creepiness by having the men come right up and openly stare, while other artists tend to show them hiding at a distance.
(10) I read a couple of the threads, and they just seemed a little weird and creepy.
(11) [He was] creepy, yes, but it never crossed my mind there was any kind of paedophilia going on.
(12) But the first recent coverage to get attention came from a little-known YouTube user, DaPhoneyRapperz , who uploaded a video supposedly showing the Democratic nominee convulsing and having seizures – mainly the same few bits of video of Clinton laughing or making faces looped to a creepy soundtrack – on 21 July and has more than 2.2m views.
(13) It burned images into my mind: Danny's endless steadicam cycle down the hotel corridors, ending with the twins in the hallway; the woman in room 237; the creepy partygoers in animal masks; the horrifying reveal of the message "Redrum"; the wash of blood from the elevator; Jack Nicholson with the axe at the door calling "Here's Johnny!
(14) The home of the ants Atala’s encounter with creepy-crawlies in São Gabriel das Cachoeiras was not a coincidence.
(15) But it’s creepy how that all debate over whether hackers are freedom fighters or criminals seems to go out of the window, when the much greater prize of - woo-hoo!
(16) But the main sequence was original, with horror-movie-like shots of a creepy party where the word “rape” has been scrawled on balloons.
(17) Sir Roger Jones said he always felt that Savile was "a pretty creepy sort of character" and had heard of rumours from BBC staff in London, but did not tell management because he did not have any evidence to back the gossip up.
(18) Moody acknowledges it is an area fraught with ethical and reputational risk: “One of the questions we get asked is: how do we ensure that we are not being creepy?” Context, he believes, is the key.
(19) The blog Creepy Paddington emerged, Photoshopping him into various horror movies from Paranormal Activity to The Shining.
(20) Well, yes, it is creepy, but worried isn't the right word.