crept
[ krept ]
/ krɛpt /
verb
simple past tense and past participle of creep.
Words nearby crept
crepitate,
crepitation,
crepitus,
crepon,
creps,
crept,
crepuscular,
crepuscular ray,
crepuscule,
crepy,
cres.
Definition for crept (2 of 2)
creep
[ kreep ]
/ krip /
verb (used without object), crept, creep·ing.
verb (used with object), crept, creep·ing.
Slang.
to follow persistently or stealthily, especially online: I’ve been creeping her blog and found some great recipes.
Archaic.
to creep along or over.
noun
Origin of creep
before 900; Middle English
crepen, Old English
crēopan; cognate with Dutch
kruipen, Old Norse
krjūpa
synonym study for creep
1. See
crawl1.
historical usage of creep
The verb
creep comes from Old English
crēopan, a strong verb (that is, a verb from a root that has vowel changes in its inflectional forms, as
sing, sang, sung ).
The four principal parts of crēopan are crēopan (present infinitive and the dictionary headword), crēap (past tense singular), crupon (past tense plural), and cropen (past participle). The verb has very many bewildering dialect forms, variants, and spellings in Old English and later in Middle English.
Around 1300 we see the first appearance of inflections of weak verbs (also called regular verbs, with no vowel changes), like love, loved, loved, initially in the past tense. William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible (1534) has the past participle crept, replacing the strong form cropen. Some descendants of the Old English strong verb lived on in certain British and American dialects, such as the past tense crope, which shows up in the speech of runaway slave Jim in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884): “I crope out, all a-tremblin’.”
The slang meaning of the noun “an obnoxious, disturbingly eccentric person” arose in the late 19th century, connected with the now obsolete meaning “a person who creeps along; a sneak.”
The four principal parts of crēopan are crēopan (present infinitive and the dictionary headword), crēap (past tense singular), crupon (past tense plural), and cropen (past participle). The verb has very many bewildering dialect forms, variants, and spellings in Old English and later in Middle English.
Around 1300 we see the first appearance of inflections of weak verbs (also called regular verbs, with no vowel changes), like love, loved, loved, initially in the past tense. William Tyndale’s translation of the Bible (1534) has the past participle crept, replacing the strong form cropen. Some descendants of the Old English strong verb lived on in certain British and American dialects, such as the past tense crope, which shows up in the speech of runaway slave Jim in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884): “I crope out, all a-tremblin’.”
The slang meaning of the noun “an obnoxious, disturbingly eccentric person” arose in the late 19th century, connected with the now obsolete meaning “a person who creeps along; a sneak.”
OTHER WORDS FROM creep
creep·ing·ly, adverb non·creep·ing, adjective out·creep, verb (used with object), out·crept, out·creep·ing. un·creep·ing, adjectiveExample sentences from the Web for crept
British Dictionary definitions for crept (1 of 2)
British Dictionary definitions for crept (2 of 2)
creep
/ (kriːp) /
verb creeps, creeping or crept (intr)
noun
See also
creeps
Word Origin for creep
Old English
crēopan; related to Old Frisian
kriāpa, Old Norse
krjūpa, Middle Low German
krūpen
Idioms and Phrases with crept
creep