(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.
