crawling

[ˈkɹɔːlɪŋ]

Language▾

German

Persian

Russian

Spanish

crawl

Crawling refers to moving slowly on hands and knees or by dragging oneself along the ground. It's usually seen in young children learning to walk.

When people talk about something being crawly, they often mean that it moves in a slow and awkward way, like a baby taking its first steps. For example, if you see a caterpillar making its way across the floor, someone might say "Look at how crawly it is!" They're describing how slowly and deliberately the caterpillar moves. Sometimes people also use "crawling" to describe something that's spreading or moving in a slow, gradual way, like a stain on fabric creeping across the surface.

How common is "crawling"?

Word crawling is considered rare in modern English.
It appears most frequently in fiction texts and less often in other writings.

Definitions

verb

To creep; to move slowly on hands and knees, or by dragging the body along the ground.
Example: Clutching my wounded side, I crawled back to the trench.
To move forward slowly, with frequent stops.
Example: The rush-hour traffic crawled around the bypass.
To act in a servile manner.
Example: Don't come crawling to me with your useless apologies!
(with "with") See crawl with.
To feel a swarming sensation.
Example: The horrible sight made my skin crawl.
To swim using the crawl stroke.
Example: I think I'll crawl the next hundred metres.
To move over an area on hands and knees.
Example: The baby crawled the entire second floor.
To visit while becoming inebriated.
Example: They crawled the downtown bars.
To visit files or web sites in order to index them for searching.
Example: Yahoo Search has updated its Slurp Crawler to crawl web sites faster and more efficiently.

1 / 9

noun

The motion of something that crawls.

Real examples of "crawling" in context

Elizabeth Olsen Feels Brave While Eating Spicy Wings | Hot Ones

Interview

That was awful to have to, for the majority of a horror movie, be in like tears, screaming, crawling on a floor.

14:36