crawl

• (UK)
  • (Received Pronunciation) enPR: krôl, IPA^(key): /kɹɔːl/
  • (Northumbria) IPA^(key): /kɹaːl/
• (General American) enPR: krôl, IPA^(key): /kɹɔl/
• (cot–caught merger) enPR: kräl, IPA^(key): /kɹɑl/
• (General Australian, New Zealand) enPR: krôl, IPA^(key): /kɹoːl/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɔːl
• Homophone: kraal

From 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.

crawl (third-person singular simple present crawls, present participle crawling, simple past and past participle crawled)

1. (intransitive) 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.

   Clutching my wounded side, I crawled back to the trench.

   • 1701, Nehemiah Grew, “Of Celestial Mind”, in Cosmologia Sacra: Or A Discourse of the Universe as It is the Creature and Kingdom of God. […], London: […] W[illiam] Rogers, S[amuel] Smith, and B[enjamin] Walford: […], →OCLC, 2nd book, paragraph 32, page 83:

     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.

   • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter VII, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:

     '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 them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. […]'

   • 1915, Vasculum (Substitute), volumes 1-5, page 84:

     The other species was a scale worm, Lepidonotus cirratus, which, when undisturbed, crawled rapidly about, reminding one of a centipede, but with the addition of numbers of hairy spines at each side and over-lapping scales.

   • 2021, Maximilian Hawker, Rory Hobble and the Voyage to Haligogen (page 250?):

     […] a large group of tornits approached, crawling over floor, wall and ceiling alike, their golden animal eyes glinting against the light of the occasional mushroom.

2. (intransitive) 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.

   • 1603, Philemon Holland, The Philosophie, commonlie called, The Morals written by the learned Philoſopher Plutarch of Chæronea‎^[1]:

     […] and catching hold with his hand upon the rough cragges, […] he crawled up to the toppe thereof

   • 1605, Shakespeare, Lear, I, i, 42:

     While we Vnburthen'd crawle toward death.

   • 1654, R. Whitlock, Zootomia, 124:

     Sickneese posteth to us, but crawleth from us.

   • 1850, Kingsley, Alt. Locke, xxx:

     Months and seasons crawled along,

3. (intransitive) To advance by guile and servility; to act in a servile manner, trying to please someone in order to gain favor.

   Synonyms: kowtow, grovel

   Don’t come crawling to me with your useless apologies!

   • 1613 (date written), William Shakespeare, [John Fletcher], “The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eight”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     Our hard-ruled king. Again, there is sprung up. An heretic, an arch one, Cranmer; one. Hath crawled into the favour of the king

4. To spread by extending tendrils, stems, or branches; to creep or trail (as a vine).

   The old house was covered in vines crawling over every available surface.

   • 1668, Culpepper and Cole, Barthol. Anat., I. xv. 38:

     A little […] Nerve […] which crawls up and down the Coat of the Liver.

   • 1867, Lady Herbert, Cradle L., ii. 57:

     Passion-flowers, ipomaeas, and hibiscus crawled over every wall.

5. (intransitive, transitive) To swim using the crawl stroke.

   I think I'll crawl instead of breaststroke.

   I think I'll crawl the next hundred metres.

6. (intransitive) Followed by with: see crawl with.
7. (intransitive) To feel a swarming sensation; to have a sensation like that produced by insects crawling over one's body.

   The horrible sight made my skin crawl.

   • 1880, Robert Grant, The Confessions of a Frivolous Girl: A Story of Fashioable Life, page 161:

     [Their] dirtiness positively made me crawl.

8. (intransitive, of paint or varnish, ceramic glaze, etc) To spread unevenly; to fail to be or remain evenly spread.
9. (transitive) To move over (an area) on hands and knees, or by dragging the body along.

   The baby crawled the entire second floor.

   • 1912, Harold Grahame Richards, Centene, page 87:

     […] the nightmare horrors that crawled the reeking walls and floor.

   • 1944 August, Blue Book magazine‎^[2]:

     His Slav features regarded me with the wooden indifference he would have shown to an insect crawling the wall.

   • 1998, None, Thy Will Be Done: 134 Touching Personal Stories of Fatalities Among Plain People‎^[3]:

     Wilbur thought of Ronnie being up above. He crawled the ladder as fast as he could, […]

10. (transitive) To move over (an area) slowly, with frequent stops.

    They crawled the downtown bars.

    • 2015, Fujino Omori, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Vol. 4 (light novel), Yen Press LLC, →ISBN:

      "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."

    • 2019, Leigh Landry, Cajun Two-Step: The Complete Series, Leigh Landry:

      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 anywhere—sports bars; gay clubs;  […]

    • 2021, Antonio Alcala Gonzalez, Carl H. Sederholm, Lovecraft in the 21st Century: Dead, But Still Dreaming, Routledge, →ISBN:

      One of the later Crawl trailers, the Nintendo Switch version, advertises its key gameplay in a sentence, “Crawl the dungeon while your friends possess the traps, beasts, and bosses against you” before later adopting the phrase […]

11. (transitive, Internet) To 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.

• → German: kraulen

crawl (plural crawls)

1. The act of moving slowly on hands and knees, etc.
2. The act of sequentially visiting a series of similar establishments (i.e., a bar crawl).
3. A rapid swimming stroke with alternate overarm strokes and a fluttering kick.
4. (figurative) A very slow pace.

   My computer has slowed down to a crawl since I installed that software package.

5. (television, film) A piece of horizontally or vertically scrolling text overlaid on the main image.
   • 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Games[4]

     The opening crawl (and a stirring propaganda movie) informs us that “The Hunger Games” are an annual event in Panem, a North American nation divided into 12 different districts, each in service to the Capitol, a wealthy metropolis that owes its creature comforts to an oppressive dictatorship.

• → Portuguese: crol, crawl

Compare kraal.

crawl (plural crawls)

1. A pen or enclosure of stakes and hurdles for holding fish.

Borrowed from English crawl.

• IPA^(key): /kʁol/

• Audio (France (Lyon)):

  (file)

crawl m (plural crawls)

1. crawl (swimming stroke)

• “crawl”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012

Unadapted borrowing from English crawl.

crawl m

1. crawl (swimming stroke)

Unadapted borrowing from English crawl.

• Hyphenation: crawl

crawl m (uncountable)

1. alternative spelling of crol

• crawlista

• “crawl”, in Dicionário Aulete Digital (in Portuguese), Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon Editora Digital, 2008–2026
• “crawl”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2026

Borrowed from English crawl.

crawl c (uncountable)

1. (swimming) crawl

• crawla
• crawlare

• bröstsim
• fjärilsim
• frisim
• hundsim
• ryggsim
• simsätt

• “crawl”, in Svensk ordbok [Dictionary of Swedish] (in Swedish)
• “crawl”, in Svenska Akademiens ordlista [Wordlist of the Swedish Academy] (in Swedish)