26984 words

crawls

9 definitions • 19 examples
1
to move along on hands and knees or with your body stretched out along a surface:

Examples:

Megan has just learned to crawl.
He had to crawl along a ledge and get in through a window.
2
to move or progress slowly or with difficulty:

Examples:

The lorry crawled noisily up the hill.
crawl along There's a lot of work to be done and we're crawling along at a snail's pace.
3
to try hard to please in order to get an advantage:

Examples:

I don't like people who crawl.
crawl to He crawled to the group leader because he wanted a promotion.
4
to be completely covered with or full of a particular type of thing:

Examples:

After the bomb scare, the airport was crawling with police.
5
a fast style of swimming in which the body faces down and you move your arms over and past your head one after the other in a circular movement, and kick with straight legs:

Examples:

do the crawl She can do the crawl, backstroke, and breaststroke, which is amazing for someone so young.
I tend to swim breaststroke — I can barely swim one width of the crawl.
When you swim front crawl you put your face in the water.
Their backstroke is superb but their front crawl still needs a lot of work.
He ploughed up and down the length of the pool in a faultless front crawl.
6
a very slow speed:

Examples:

7
to move slowly with the body stretched out along the ground or (of a human) on hands and knees:

Examples:

fig. The train crawled slowly through the night.
8
a way of swimming fast by lying with your chest down, kicking your legs, and raising first one arm then the other out of the water to move yourself forward
9
a very slow rate of speed:

Examples:

Traffic slowed to a crawl (= a very slow speed).

Navigation