Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Crawl

Crawl (kra̤l), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Crawled (kra̤ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Crawling.] [Dan. kravle, or Icel. krafla, to paw, scrabble with the hands; akin to Sw. kräla to crawl; cf. LG. krabbeln, D. krabbelen to scratch.] 1. To move slowly by drawing the body along the ground, as a worm; to move slowly on hands and knees; to creep.

A worm finds what it searches after only by feeling, as it crawls from one thing to another. Grew.

2. Hence, to move or advance in a feeble, slow, or timorous manner.

He was hardly able to crawl about the room. Arbuthnot.

The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes. Byron.

3. To advance slowly and furtively; to insinuate one's self; to advance or gain influence by servile or obsequious conduct.

Secretly crawling up the battered walls. Knolles.

Hath crawled into the favor of the king. Shak.

Absurd opinions crawl about the world. South.

4. To have a sensation as of insect creeping over the body; as, the flesh crawls. See Creep, v. i., 7.

Crawl (kra̤l), n. The act or motion of crawling; slow motion, as of a creeping animal.

Crawl, n. [Cf. Kraal.] A pen or inclosure of stakes and hurdles on the seacoast, for holding fish.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.