Creeps

How to spell creeps

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce creeps

What does creeps mean?

1. verbMoves slowly, quietly, or gradually, often close to the ground or without being noticed.
2. nounA sensation of fear or revulsion, usually in the phrase 'the creeps'.
3. nounPlural form of 'creep', meaning unpleasant or disturbing people.

Creeps in a sentence

• verb

  The cat creeps slowly across the lawn toward the pigeons.

• noun

  The abandoned hospital corridor gives me the creeps.

• noun

  The late-night forum was full of creeps harassing new members.

• verb

  A cold draught creeps under the front door every winter.

• noun

  That horror film gave the whole audience the creeps.

• noun

  She blocked all the creeps who kept messaging her uninvited.

Where does creeps come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the Old English verb crēopan, which meant to move slowly and stealthily with the body low to the ground, the way a reptile or a person crawling moves. It belongs to a wider Germanic family, with close cousins in Dutch kruipen and Old Norse krjúpa, all carrying that same sense of bending low and inching forward. Over the centuries the verb broadened from literal crawling to describe anything advancing gradually and unnoticed, such as a chill, a deadline, or ivy along a wall. The noun phrase 'the creeps', meaning a sensation of crawling dread on the skin, appeared in the nineteenth century, vividly imagining fear as something crawling over you. From there 'a creep' came to mean a person who makes your skin crawl, and the plural 'creeps' now covers both the shiver and the unsettling people who cause it. The spelling stays helpfully phonetic, with the doubled 'ee' giving the long vowel and a plain 's' on the end.

How the word is built

• creep (from Old English crēopan: to move slowly with the body close to the ground)
• -s (plural noun / third-person verb suffix)