Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

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.