Crope

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. The archaic past tense of the verb creep, meaning moved slowly and quietly close to the ground
2. An old-fashioned form of the past tense of creep, describing movement that was slow, stealthy and low
3. A obsolete past form of creep, used to describe having advanced quietly, slowly and close to a surface

Etymology: "Crope" is an old past tense of "creep," now almost entirely forgotten. In Middle English it appeared as "crope," and it came down from Old English "crēap," the form used for "I crept" and "he crept" (the first and third person singular of the past indicative of "crēopan," meaning "to creep"). English verbs of this kind changed their past tense vowel over time, and "crept" eventually won out, but earlier speakers also used forms like this one. The surprise is how close it stayed to the modern word. "Crope" and "crept" are the same verb at two stages of the same history, with the vowel shifting from the ea of "crēap" to the o of "crope" before the final form settled as "crept." Because the change happened gradually, "crope" sits in the middle of that process, a reminder that the irregular past tenses of English were once less fixed than they seem now.