(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.
Spook
Definition:
(n.) A spirit; a ghost; an apparition; a hobgoblin.
(n.) The chimaera.
Example Sentences:
(1) Top Gear, Robin Hood, Doctor Who, Primeval and Spooks were the company's top five highest-grossing shows sold internationally.
(2) Turning on the community suggests they are spooked by the growing support to protect our national treasures.
(3) But political corruption and the implacable opposition of the spooks and military to progressive change are the traditional forms of anti-democratic politics, in Britain, as elsewhere.
(4) Two witnesses said they thought the gorilla was trying to protect the boy at first, before getting spooked by the screams of onlookers.
(5) Backing the spooks against a left-leaning newspaper is, for a Tory prime minister, a no-brainer.
(6) Investors were also spooked by a chequered sales performance as breakneck growth stuttered at home and abroad.
(7) In the latest CIA coup, America's leading spooks have sent the Twittersphere into a frenzy with their chucklesome debut on social media: "We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet."
(8) She is, therefore, basically the Ruth Evershed (from Spooks) of the ancient world.
(9) The 'judge-led inquiry' that never was is shut down and investigating kidnap and torture in freedom's name will be left to a watchdog that never barks and which exonerated the spooks six years ago."
(10) If the only black people they see are the "looky looky" men on the beach selling fake watches then the idea of a black holidaymaker might spook them.
(11) "She has reinvented family drama in Doctor Who, Robin Hood and Merlin and launched acclaimed contemporary series such as Spooks and Life on Mars as well as Cranford.
(12) Any list of the decade's most memorable shows would be dominated by series that began in its early years: The Office, Spooks, Peep Show, The Thick of It, Shameless.
(13) Greece spooked investors for a third day running on Thursday as the Athens stock exchange fell 7.35% amid fears over the debt-stricken country’s future in the eurozone.
(14) If the desertion of some of their juniors has spooked Egypt's generals, they are being careful not to show it.
(15) In the technology world, a still-young and rapidly expanding business posting losses isn't unusual, and it's unlikely to spook many investors.
(16) The Daily Mail and the Spectator apparently don't care much if spooks routinely capture and comb all our emails and phone traffic.
(17) After our daughter left, my wife would sometimes go to her room – pictures of Spooks, etc – and cry.
(18) He is said to have entered the Hatton Garden Safe Deposit premises on 3 April and walked away on 5 April, spooked by the discovery that the fire escape door they had previously used had been locked in the interim.
(19) As the debate in ancient Westminster Hall wound on and the libertarians (security must not undermine basic freedoms) proved the better-briefed side, the spook faction got a bit dirty, as is their patriotic duty.
(20) That’s how Mussolini got in, that’s how Hitler got in: they took advantage of a situation, a problem perhaps, which humanity was going through at the time, after an economic crisis.” Peña Nieto’s pronouncements are the most forceful so far against Trump, whose rise to the top of the Republican primary races has spooked Mexicans of all social strata.