Creepings

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A slow, low-growing plant that tends to extend along surfaces
2. The act of advancing stealthily or gradually, often to avoid detection
3. A type of movement characterized by a gradual, careful progression, often used in relation to growth patterns

Etymology: "Creepings" is the plural of "creeping," a noun for a slow, gradual advance, and the plural form simply counts separate instances of that advance. The noun comes from the verb "creep," which in Old English was "crēopan," and the two relevant Old English forms show how the base verb grew into the noun. One was "crēopende," a participle form that passed into Middle English as "crepynge" and related spellings; the other was "crēopung," built directly from "creep" with the suffix "-ung," later "-ing." The suffix turned a verb of motion into something that names the motion itself. The verb behind all of this reaches back to Proto-Germanic "*kreupaną," meaning "to creep or crawl," which gives the word its deep sense of low, close-to-the-ground movement. Over centuries that literal crawling picked up figurative uses, so a slow, almost unnoticed advance, of a tide, a fear, or an army, came to be described with the same image of something moving forward without seeming to move at all.

Synonyms: crawling, slithering, scurrying

Antonyms: running, jumping, leaping