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.
Example
“Clutching my wounded side, I crawled back to the trench.”
Other meanings
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.”
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!”
Synonyms
- creep
Example sentences
Word history
From Old Norse "krafla".
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “crawl” on Wiktionary, by its contributors; example sentences are from Tatoeba, credited to their authors above; related-word lists use Open English WordNet (CC BY 4.0, based on Princeton WordNet), published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.