Crawling

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Crawl \Crawl\ (kr[add]l), v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Crawled}
     (kr[add]ld); p. pr. & vb. n. {Crawling}.] [Dan. kravle, or
     Icel. krafla, to paw, scrabble with the hands; akin to Sw.
     kr[aum]la to crawl; cf. LG. krabbeln, D. krabbelen to
     scratch.]
     1. To move slowly by drawing the body along the ground, as a


        worm; to move slowly on hands and knees; to creep.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              A worm finds what it searches after only by feeling,
              as it crawls from one thing to another. --Grew.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     2. Hence, to move or advance in a feeble, slow, or timorous
        manner.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              He was hardly able to crawl about the room.
                                                    --Arbuthnot.
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              The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes.
                                                    --Byron.
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     3. To advance slowly and furtively; to insinuate one's self;
        to advance or gain influence by servile or obsequious
        conduct.
        [1913 Webster]
  
              Secretly crawling up the battered walls. --Knolles.
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              Hath crawled into the favor of the king. --Shak.
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              Absurd opinions crawl about the world. --South.
        [1913 Webster]
  
     4. To have a sensation as of insect creeping over the body;
        as, the flesh crawls. See {Creep}, v. i., 7.
        [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  crawling
       n : 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},
            {creep}, {creeping}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  211 Moby Thesaurus words for "crawling":
     abject, accumbent, alive with, all fours, ambling, amphibian,
     anguine, atiptoe, atmospherics, backscratching, batrachian,
     beggarly, blaring, blasting, blind spot, bootlicking, bristling,
     bursting, cautious, circumspect, claudicant, close, colubriform,
     compact, couchant, couche, cowering, crammed, crawl, creep,
     creeping, creeping like snail, cringing, crocodilian, crouching,
     crowded, crowding, decumbent, deliberate, dense, draped, drift,
     easy, fade-out, fading, faltering, fawning, firm, flagging, flat,
     flattering, foot-dragging, footlicking, froggy, full, gentle,
     gradual, groveling, gumshoeing, halting, hangdog, hobbled,
     hobbling, honeycombed, idle, in profusion, indolent, ingratiating,
     interference, jam-packed, jammed, languid, languorous, lavish,
     lazy, leisurely, limping, lizardlike, lolling, lounging, lumbering,
     lying, mealymouthed, moderate, nightwalking, noise, obeisant,
     obsequious, on all fours, on bended knee, on tippytoe, on tiptoe,
     ophidian, overflowing, packed, padding, parasitic, permeated,
     poking, poky, populous, procumbent, prodigal, profuse,
     proliferating, prolific, prone, prostrate, prowling, pussyfooting,
     reception, reclining, recumbent, relaxed, reluctant, repent,
     reposing, reptant, reptatorial, reptile, reptilelike, reptilian,
     reptiliform, reptiloid, resupine, rife, saturated, sauntering,
     saurian, scrabble, scramble, serpentiform, serpentile, serpentine,
     serpentlike, serpentoid, serried, shot through, shuffling, sidling,
     slack, slinking, slithering, slothful, slow, slow as death,
     slow as molasses, slow as slow, slow-crawling, slow-foot,
     slow-going, slow-legged, slow-moving, slow-paced, slow-poky,
     slow-running, slow-sailing, slow-stepped, sluggish, snail-paced,
     snaillike, snakelike, snaking, snaky, sneaking, sniveling, solid,
     sponging, sprawled, sprawling, spread, staggering, static,
     stealing, strolling, studded, superabundant, supine, swarming,
     sycophantic, teeming, tentative, thick, thick as hail, thick with,
     thick-coming, thronged, thronging, timeserving, tippytoe, tiptoe,
     tiptoeing, toadeating, toadish, toadying, toadyish, toddling,
     tortoiselike, tottering, truckling, trudging, turtlelike,
     unhurried, viperiform, viperish, viperlike, viperoid, viperous,
     vipery, waddling, worming