to begin to crawl
1
2.8
- phrasal verb
- /bɪˈɡɪn tə krɔl/
:
comenzar a arrastrarse
- He could not walk after the attack because his leg was shattered, so he began to crawl across the concrete pavement to get help.
Examples
-
The injured soldier began to crawl slowly away from the battlefield towards safety.
-
She began to crawl about on all fours and climb up the walls of the house, like some desperate reptile.
Fiction book (1995) -
The pickup lurched and began to crawl down the dirt road.
Fiction book (1998) -
Darling Donnis raised a knee from the canvas and began to crawl toward Bob Noxious.
Fiction book (1992) -
He studied 15 infants who were videotaped weekly, from the age of 6 months until they began to crawl.
Academic text (1996) -
It indicated that infants born in the summer and fall begin to crawl about three weeks later than infants born in the winter and spring.
Academic text (1996) -
Casimir smiled and began to crawl toward him between flowering shrubs and the outer wall.
Fiction book (1992) -
After the baby began to crawl, she explored every corner of the living room.
-
As the traffic jam continued, the cars began to crawl along the road at a snail's pace.
Antonyms
How Fast
Surface Forms
Morphology
The meaning 'to start moving or making progress very slowly' is directly and transparently derived from combining 'begin' (to commence) with 'crawl' (to move on hands and knees); 'to' is just the infinitival marker and adds no additional idiomatic meaning. This is a straightforward verb + infinitive composition common across languages, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words will readily understand the MWE.
Etymology
The phrase begin to crawl paints a simple picture: something that once moved faster now moves like a baby on hands and knees or like cars in heavy traffic. The verb crawl gives that slow, steady image, so the phrase means 'to move or make progress very slowly'.