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CRAWLING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A slow mode of locomotion on hands and knees or dragging the body
Example:
the traffic moved at a creep
Synonyms:
crawl; crawling; creep; creeping
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("crawling" is a kind of...):
locomotion; travel (self-propelled movement)
Derivation:
crawl (move slowly; in the case of people or animals with the body near the ground)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb crawl
Context examples:
And yet ere I have been here an hour I find Englishmen crawling about within it.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
There was an uneasy rustling, as if it were crawling slowly forward.
(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
But what do you think of yourself spreading reports about me like that, and then crawling to me for help the moment you are in trouble?
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
I had rather that Nancy and my old pals should think of Harry Wood as having died with a straight back, than see him living and crawling with a stick like a chimpanzee.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
For a long time she coughs, then like a woman crawling out of her grave she crawls to her feet.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
Once, indeed, the Tin Woodman stepped upon a beetle that was crawling along the road, and killed the poor little thing.
(The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum)
We could combine these simple movements into more complex motion, like crawling, walking, or swimming, said Fiorenzo Omenetto, Ph.D., corresponding author of the study and the Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering in the School of Engineering at Tufts.
(New Materials Developed by Scientists Able to Move in Response to Light, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
At Kimberham Bridge the carriage-lamps were all lit, and it was wonderful, where the road curved downwards before us, to see this writhing serpent with the golden scales crawling before us in the darkness.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
The normal growth of babies can be broken down into the following areas: • Gross motor - controlling the head, sitting, crawling, maybe even starting to walk • Fine motor - holding a spoon, picking up a piece of cereal between thumb and finger • Sensory - seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and smelling • Language - starting to make sounds, learning some words, understanding what people say • Social - the ability to play with family members and other children
(Infant and Newborn Development, NIH)
Delighted and surprised, I embraced her, but as I imprinted the first kiss on her lips, they became livid with the hue of death; her features appeared to change, and I thought that I held the corpse of my dead mother in my arms; a shroud enveloped her form, and I saw the grave-worms crawling in the folds of the flannel.
(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)
