- [countable] (informal) a person that you dislike very much and find very unpleasant
- He's a nasty little creep!
- You little creep!
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- [countable] (British English, informal) a person who is not sincere but tries to win your approval by being nice to you
- He’s the sort of creep who would do that kind of thing!
- [uncountable] (often in compounds) (often disapproving) the development of a project beyond the goal that was originally agreed
- The World Bank has been accused of mission creep when seeking to address these concerns.
- The inclusion of health data on identity cards was condemned as function creep.
- creep of something We need to prevent this slow creep of costs.
Word OriginOld English crēopan ‘move with the body close to the ground’, of Germanic origin; related to Dutch kruipen. Sense 1 of the verb dates from Middle English.
Idioms
See creep in the Oxford Advanced American Dictionarygive somebody the creeps
- (informal) to make somebody feel nervous and slightly frightened, especially because somebody/something is unpleasant or strange
- This old house gives me the creeps.
Check pronunciation:
creep