Definition: crawl

Search dictionary for

Source: WordNet (r) 1.7 

crawl
     n 1: a very slow movement; "the traffic advanced at a crawl"
     2: a swimming stroke; arms are moved alternately overhead
        accompanied by a flutter kick [syn: front crawl, Australian
        crawl]
     3: a slow creeping mode of locomotion (on hands and knees or
        dragging the body); "a crawl was all that the injured man
        could manage"; "the traffic moved at a creep" [syn: crawling,
         creep, creeping]
     v 1: move slowly; in the case of people or animals with the body
          near the ground; "The crocodile was crawling along the
          riverbed" [syn: creep]
     2: feel as if crawling with insects; "My skin crawled--I was
        terrified"
     3: be crawling with; "The old cheese was crawling with maggots"
     4: show submission or fear [syn: fawn, creep, cringe, cower,
         grovel]
     5: swim by doing the crawl; "European children learn the breast
        stroke; they often don't know how to crawl"

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) 

Crawl \Crawl\ (kr[add]l), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Crawled
   (kr[add]ld); p. pr. & vb. n. Crawling.] [Dan. kravle, or
   Icel. krafla, to paw, scrabble with the hands; akin to Sw.
   kr[aum]la 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.
Crawl \Crawl\ (kr?l), n.
   The act or motion of crawling; slow motion, as of a creeping
   animal.
Crawl \Crawl\, n. [Cf. Kraal.]
   A pen or inclosure of stakes and hurdles on the seacoast, for
   holding fish.