dictionary · eo1.org

crawl

Fetched 2026-10-27 (live).

Synonyms: brawl, scrawl, drawl, wrawl, craw, trawl, crowl, crawk, acrawl, chawl, crail

Antonyms: brawl, scrawl, drawl, wrawl, craw, trawl, crowl, crawk, acrawl, chawl, crail

Related words from Datamuse; suggestions, not definitions.

Verb

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. To advance by guile and servility; to act in a servile manner, trying to please someone in order to gain favor.
    • Don’t come crawling to me with your useless apologies!
  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.
  5. To swim using the crawl stroke.
    • I think I'll crawl instead of breaststroke.
    • I think I'll crawl the next hundred metres.
  6. Followed by with: see crawl with.
  7. 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.
  8. To spread unevenly; to fail to be or remain evenly spread.
  9. To move over (an area) on hands and knees, or by dragging the body along.
    • The baby crawled the entire second floor.
  10. To move over (an area) slowly, with frequent stops.
    • They crawled the downtown bars.
  11. 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.

Noun

  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. A very slow pace.
    • My computer has slowed down to a crawl since I installed that software package.
  5. A piece of horizontally or vertically scrolling text overlaid on the main image.

Noun

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

Source: Wiktionary · CC BY-SA 3.0 (Wiktionary) · cached copy, not a rewrite.