Words / B2

KRORL/krɔːl/

To crawl is to move on hands and knees, or very slowly; the crawl is also a swimming stroke; a traffic crawl is very slow movement: crawl along; the front crawl. Creep is a close twin for slow quiet movement; inch is slower still. Traffic crawled on the A-road, the bulletin said; still quote the delay in minutes. Mix-up: crawl vs scrawl; crayfish; do not write crawl for a web “crawl” unless the computing source uses that term.

Meaning

To move on hands and knees, or very slowly; the crawl is also a swimming stroke; a traffic crawl is very slow movement.

Examples

• “Traffic crawled on the A-road, the bulletin said; still quote the delay in minutes.”
• “The front crawl featured in the PE assessment, which is the swimming-stroke sense — still name the time.”

Good to know

crawl along / with; a traffic crawl; the front crawl. Close: creep / inch. Trap: scrawl. Geography, PE, and news. Move on hands and knees, move very slowly, or a swimming stroke — specify.

Near in meaning

creep, inch, clamber

New