(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.
Skulk
Definition:
(v. i.) To hide, or get out of the way, in a sneaking manner; to lie close, or to move in a furtive way; to lurk.
(n.) A number of foxes together.
(n.) Alt. of Skulker
Example Sentences:
(1) Maybe it’s because they are skulking, sedentary creatures, tied to their post; the theatre critic isn’t going anywhere other than the stalls, and then back home to write.
(2) In keeping with the long tradition of skulking secrecy, the appointment was not made public until 2000, by which time he was a lieutenant-general and, to those in the know, second only to Mubarak.
(3) Parties that skulked in the shadows, playingdown their sympathies with fascism and Nazism are re-emerging, having given themselves a PR facelift.
(4) His colleagues are shown as being manipulated by skulking professional agitators and to some it seemed more like a political statement than a human story about the crushing of an individual.
(5) There are hundreds of tired, hungry young men in makeshift camps, skulking in corners, massing with intent, playing a dangerous, occasionally violent game of cat and mouse with the authorities.
(6) Then the assembled journalists (I count six) skulk off to the next job of the day 9.51am GMT Taking a closer look at the ONS announcement .
(7) They skulk away for a good think, and often stay away for days.
(8) Did I skulk in dodgy pubs with bull-necked men with shaved heads and bulldogs?
(9) "He'd then end up on the back of the toaster for twelve months before skulking back to the fridge and hoping that everyone forgets about his former delusions regarding his abilities and profile."
(10) Because of Ofcom rules, Openreach gets to skulk behind the service providers who have to deal with customer complaints on its behalf.
(11) You look at these augurs and realise things were never going to go well, and that's before even mentioning Stan's conspicuous skulking into the Project K bunker.
(12) The sight of Schalke players celebrating wildly on the turf at the final whistle, all hugs and punches of the air, while the hosts skulked off down the tunnel told its own story.
(13) Neither innocent nor guilty, you could skulk here for decades, while the alderman's daughter grows old: between step and step, grow old yourself, slip the noose of your name.
(14) For my part, skulking under a canopy of trees, I tried to even out a tennis court that was badly misshapen.
(15) That skulking between planes was an odd manoeuvre, very unlike his customary strutting.
(16) Their lament, orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, is music to the ears of tone-deaf neocons and oil executives everywhere: Iran is the snake skulking under every stone – backing Hamas in Gaza , Hezbollah in Lebanon , and the blood-drenched Alawite regime in Syria .
(17) They had no beer licence, but I got a cup of coffee and the owner told me in rich, mellifluous Irish how the place was normally teeming with Gaeilgeoirí (Irish speakers) but because it was a sunny day no one wanted to be skulking underground and so I was the only customer.
(18) I didn't want a life where I was skulking around with boxes of weed and meeting dodgy people.
(19) Didier Drogba , perhaps inevitably, had taken centre-stage in the dressing room while, across the corridor, a steady stream of crestfallen Bayern players skulked out into the night.
(20) Even while he has relished a return to the spotlight in recent months thanks to his assertive stance on the border crisis , the threat of serious legal trouble has been skulking in the background.