crawl
verbnounnouncommon in dialogue
- United Kingdom//kɹɔːl//
- United Kingdom//kɹoːl//
- Scotland//kɾɔl//
- //kɹaːl//
- //kɾɔːl//
To move by dragging one's body along or close to a surface, like a worm or insect, or on one's hands and knees, like a human baby.
verb
- 1
To move by dragging one's body along or close to a surface, like a worm or insect, or on one's hands and knees, like a human baby.
Clutching my wounded side, I crawled back to the trench.
A VVorm finds vvhat it ſearches after, only by Feeling, as it cravvls from one thing to another. VVhereas a Man, having Eyes, ſees it in a Moment, all before him.
'Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,' he said. 'The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared.[…]'
The other species was a scale worm, Lepidonotus cirratus, which, when undisturbed, crawled rapidly about, reminding one of a centipede, but with the addition of numbers of hairy spines at each side and over-lapping scales.
- 2
To move or progress slowly or laboriously, or with great difficulty (for example due to feebleness) or frequent stops.
The rush-hour traffic crawled around the bypass.
[…] and catching hold with his hand upon the rough cragges, […] he crawled up to the toppe thereof
While we Vnburthen'd crawle toward death.
Sickneese posteth to us, but crawleth from us.
- 3
To advance by guile and servility; to act in a servile manner, trying to please someone in order to gain favor.
Don’t come crawling to me with your useless apologies!
Our hard-ruled king. Again, there is sprung up. An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer; one. Hath crawled into the favour of the king
- 4
To spread by extending tendrils, stems, or branches; to creep or trail (as a vine).
The old house was covered in vines crawling over every available surface.
A little […] Nerve […] which crawls up and down the Coat of the Liver.
Passion-flowers, ipomaeas, and hibiscus crawled over every wall.
- 5
To swim using the crawl stroke.
I think I'll crawl instead of breaststroke.
I think I'll crawl the next hundred metres.
- 6
Followed by with: see crawl with.
- 7
To feel a swarming sensation; to have a sensation like that produced by insects crawling over one's body.
The horrible sight made my skin crawl.
[Their] dirtiness positively made me crawl.
- 8
To spread unevenly; to fail to be or remain evenly spread.
- 9
To move over (an area) on hands and knees, or by dragging the body along.
The baby crawled the entire second floor.
[…] the nightmare horrors that crawled the reeking walls and floor.
His Slav features regarded me with the wooden indifference he would have shown to an insect crawling the wall.
Wilbur thought of Ronnie being up above. He crawled the ladder as fast as he could, […]
- 10
To move over (an area) slowly, with frequent stops.
They crawled the downtown bars.
"I used to crawl the Dungeon like you do, Bell, saving up money... But one day, I screwed verything up. Got thoroughly wrecked by a monster, and it ate my right arm."
Eric had crawled the downtown bar scene with these guys many nights, after gigs and back when they were all in college together. Eric liked hanging with them, because they were as comfortable hanging anywhere—sports bars; gay clubs; […]
One of the later Crawl trailers, the Nintendo Switch version, advertises its key gameplay in a sentence, “Crawl the dungeon while your friends possess the traps, beasts, and bosses against you” before later adopting the phrase […]
- 11
To visit (files or web sites) in order to index them for searching.
Yahoo Search has updated its Slurp Crawler to crawl websites faster and more efficiently.
Etymology
From Middle English crawlen, crewlen, creulen, crallen, *cravelen, from Old Norse krafla (compare Danish kravle (“to crawl, creep”), Swedish kravla, kräla (“to creep, crawl”)), from Proto-Germanic *krablōną (compare Saterland Frisian krabbelje, Dutch krabbelen, German Low German krabbeln, German krabbeln), frequentative of *krabbōną (“to scratch, scrape”). Compare also Saterland Frisian krauelje (“to crawl, scuttle”), West Frisian kreauwelje (“to crawl”), Dutch krevelen, krieuwelen (“to crawl”), German Low German kribbeln, German kribbeln (“to creep, crawl, tingle”). See also crab, crabble.
noun
- 1
The act of moving slowly on hands and knees, etc.
- 2
The act of sequentially visiting a series of similar establishments (i.e., a bar crawl).
- 3
A rapid swimming stroke with alternate overarm strokes and a fluttering kick.
- 4
figurativeA very slow pace.
My computer has slowed down to a crawl since I installed that software package.
- 5
A piece of horizontally or vertically scrolling text overlaid on the main image.
noun
- 1
A pen or enclosure of stakes and hurdles for holding fish.
Etymology
Compare kraal.
Forms
- plural
- crawls
- past tense
- crawled
- past participle
- crawled
- present participle
- crawling
- third person singular
- crawls
crawl · To move by dragging one's body along or close to a surface, like a worm or insect, or on one's hands and knees, like a human baby.
Crawley · A place in England: A large town and borough in West Sussex.crawling · The motion of something that crawls.crazed · Maddened; driven insane.