crawling

from WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006)
crawling
    n 1: a slow 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: {crawl},
         {crawling}, {creep}, {creeping}]
    
from The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
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.
      [1913 Webster]

            A worm finds what it searches after only by feeling,
            as it crawls from one thing to another. --Grew.
      [1913 Webster]

   2. Hence, to move or advance in a feeble, slow, or timorous
      manner.
      [1913 Webster]

            He was hardly able to crawl about the room.
                                                  --Arbuthnot.
      [1913 Webster]

            The meanest thing that crawl'd beneath my eyes.
                                                  --Byron.
      [1913 Webster]

   3. To advance slowly and furtively; to insinuate one's self;
      to advance or gain influence by servile or obsequious
      conduct.
      [1913 Webster]

            Secretly crawling up the battered walls. --Knolles.
      [1913 Webster]

            Hath crawled into the favor of the king. --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

            Absurd opinions crawl about the world. --South.
      [1913 Webster]

   4. To have a sensation as of insect creeping over the body;
      as, the flesh crawls. See {Creep}, v. i., 7.
      [1913 Webster]
    
from Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
211 Moby Thesaurus words for "crawling":
      abject, accumbent, alive with, all fours, ambling, amphibian,
      anguine, atiptoe, atmospherics, backscratching, batrachian,
      beggarly, blaring, blasting, blind spot, bootlicking, bristling,
      bursting, cautious, circumspect, claudicant, close, colubriform,
      compact, couchant, couche, cowering, crammed, crawl, creep,
      creeping, creeping like snail, cringing, crocodilian, crouching,
      crowded, crowding, decumbent, deliberate, dense, draped, drift,
      easy, fade-out, fading, faltering, fawning, firm, flagging, flat,
      flattering, foot-dragging, footlicking, froggy, full, gentle,
      gradual, groveling, gumshoeing, halting, hangdog, hobbled,
      hobbling, honeycombed, idle, in profusion, indolent, ingratiating,
      interference, jam-packed, jammed, languid, languorous, lavish,
      lazy, leisurely, limping, lizardlike, lolling, lounging, lumbering,
      lying, mealymouthed, moderate, nightwalking, noise, obeisant,
      obsequious, on all fours, on bended knee, on tippytoe, on tiptoe,
      ophidian, overflowing, packed, padding, parasitic, permeated,
      poking, poky, populous, procumbent, prodigal, profuse,
      proliferating, prolific, prone, prostrate, prowling, pussyfooting,
      reception, reclining, recumbent, relaxed, reluctant, repent,
      reposing, reptant, reptatorial, reptile, reptilelike, reptilian,
      reptiliform, reptiloid, resupine, rife, saturated, sauntering,
      saurian, scrabble, scramble, serpentiform, serpentile, serpentine,
      serpentlike, serpentoid, serried, shot through, shuffling, sidling,
      slack, slinking, slithering, slothful, slow, slow as death,
      slow as molasses, slow as slow, slow-crawling, slow-foot,
      slow-going, slow-legged, slow-moving, slow-paced, slow-poky,
      slow-running, slow-sailing, slow-stepped, sluggish, snail-paced,
      snaillike, snakelike, snaking, snaky, sneaking, sniveling, solid,
      sponging, sprawled, sprawling, spread, staggering, static,
      stealing, strolling, studded, superabundant, supine, swarming,
      sycophantic, teeming, tentative, thick, thick as hail, thick with,
      thick-coming, thronged, thronging, timeserving, tippytoe, tiptoe,
      tiptoeing, toadeating, toadish, toadying, toadyish, toddling,
      tortoiselike, tottering, truckling, trudging, turtlelike,
      unhurried, viperiform, viperish, viperlike, viperoid, viperous,
      vipery, waddling, worming

    

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