What is "crept"

Creep \Creep\ (kr[=e]p), v. t. [imp. Crept (kr[e^]pt) ( Crope (kr[=o]p), Obs.); p. p. Crept; p. pr. & vb. n. Creeping.] [OE. crepen, creopen, AS. cre['o]pan; akin to D. kruipen, G. kriechen, Icel. krjupa, Sw. krypa, Dan. krybe. Cf. Cripple, Crouch.]

1. 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.

   Ye that walk The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep.
   --Milton.

2. To move slowly, feebly, or timorously, as from unwillingness, fear, or weakness.

   The whining schoolboy . . . creeping, like snail, Unwillingly to school.
   --Shak.

   Like a guilty thing, I creep.
   --Tennyson.

3. 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.

   The sophistry which creeps into most of the books of argument.
   --Locke.

   Of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women.
   --2. Tim. iii. 6.

4. 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.

5. To move or behave with servility or exaggerated humility; to fawn; as, a creeping sycophant.

   To come as humbly as they used to creep.
   --Shak.

6. 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. ``Creeping vines.''
   --Dryden.

7. 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.

8. To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable.

Crept \Crept\ (kr[e^]pt), imp. & p. p. of Creep.

past tense and past participle of creep (v.).

vb. (en-past of: creep)

See creep

1. n. someone unpleasantly strange or eccentric [syn: weirdo, weirdie, weirdy, spook]

2. a slow longitudinal movement or deformation

3. a pen that is fenced so that young animals can enter but adults cannot

4. a slow creeping mode of locomotion (on hands and knees or dragging the body); "a crawl was all that the injured man could manage"; "the traffic moved at a creep" [syn: crawl, crawling, creeping]

5. [also: crept]

1. v. move slowly; in the case of people or animals with the body near the ground; "The crocodile was crawling along the riverbed" [syn: crawl]

2. to go stealthily or furtively; "..stead of sneaking around spying on the neighbor's house" [syn: sneak, mouse, steal, pussyfoot]

3. grow in such a way as to cover (a building, for example); "ivy grew over the walls of the university buildings" [syn: grow over]

4. show submission or fear [syn: fawn, crawl, cringe, cower, grovel]

5. [also: crept]