/kɹɔːl/, /kɹaːl/, /kɹɔl/
OriginFrom Middle English crawlen, crewlen, creulen, crallen, *cravelen, from Old Norse krafla (compare Danish kravle (“to crawl, creep”), Swedish kravla, kräla (“to creep, crawl”)), from Proto-Germanic *krablōną (compare Saterland Frisian krabbelje, Dutch krabbelen, German Low German krabbeln, German krabbeln), frequentative of *krabbōną (“to scratch, scrape”). Compare also Saterland Frisian krauelje (“to crawl, scuttle”), West Frisian kreauwelje (“to crawl”), Dutch krevelen, krieuwelen (“to crawl”), German Low German kribbeln, German kribbeln (“to creep, crawl, tingle”). See also crab, crabble.
- intransitiveTo creep; to move slowly on hands and knees, or by dragging the body along the ground.
“Clutching my wounded side, I crawled back to the trench.”
“A VVorm finds vvhat it ſearches after, only by Feeling, as it cravvls from one thing to another. VVhereas a Man, having Eyes, ſees it in a Moment, all before him.”
“'Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,' he said. 'The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on ”
- intransitiveTo move forward slowly, with frequent stops.
“The rush-hour traffic crawled around the bypass.”
- intransitiveTo act in a servile manner.
“Don’t come crawling to me with your useless apologies!”
“Our hard-ruled king. Again, there is sprung up. An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer; one. Hath crawled into the favour of the king”
- intransitiveFollowed by with: see crawl with.
- intransitiveTo feel a swarming sensation.
“The horrible sight made my skin crawl.”
- intransitive, transitiveTo swim using the crawl stroke.
“I think I’ll crawl the next hundred metres.”
- transitiveTo move over (an area) on hands and knees.
“The baby crawled the entire second floor.”
- transitiveTo move over (an area) slowly, with frequent stops.
“They crawled the downtown bars.”
“"I used to crawl the Dungeon like you do, Bell, saving up money... But one day, I screwed verything up. Got thoroughly wrecked by a monster, and it ate my right arm."”
“Eric had crawled the downtown bar scene with these guys many nights, after gigs and back when they were all in college together. Eric liked hanging with them, because they were as comfortable hanging ”
- Internet, transitiveTo visit files or web sites in order to index them for searching.
“Yahoo Search has updated its Slurp Crawler to crawl websites faster and more efficiently.”
- The act of moving slowly on hands and knees, etc.
- The act of sequentially visiting a series of similar establishments (i.e., a bar crawl).
- A rapid swimming stroke with alternate overarm strokes and a fluttering kick.
- figurativelyA very slow pace.
“My computer has slowed down to a crawl since I installed that software package.”
- A piece of horizontally or vertically scrolling text overlaid on the main image.
“22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Gameshttp://www.avclub.com/articles/the-hunger-games,71293/
The opening crawl (and a stirring propaganda movie) informs us that “The Hunger Games” are a”
- A pen or enclosure of stakes and hurdles for holding fish.
Formscrawls(present, singular, third-person) · crawling(participle, present) · crawled(participle, past) · crawled(past) · crawls(plural)
Source: Wiktionary