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Glite Dictionary
🧎 To move slowly 🙏 To act submissive 👥 To be full of 😨 To feel creepy 🐢 A slow movement 🚗 Very slow progress 🏊 To swim freestyle 🏊 A swim stroke
to crawl

to crawl

11 3.9
To swim using the stroke where you move one arm at a time and kick
  • verb
  • /krɔl/
  • Specialized
translation icon : nadar crol
  • After a pause, Wendy crawled right to the edge so that her hair lifted slightly in the updraft.

Examples

  • During the swimming lesson, the instructor taught us how to crawl efficiently across the pool.

  • To win the race, she practiced her crawl every day, ensuring her technique was flawless.

  • Sophie would crawl to the ocean.

  • I was so busy trying to crawl well that I didn't hear the silence until it ended.

    Fiction book (2000)

  • As a baby, you figured out how to COO and smile and crawl and scooch and eventually walk.

  • Arnold stares at his terminal, aghast, as row upon row of colored lights crawl off his screen.

    Fiction book (1993)

  • He zoomed past his competitors, demonstrating a perfect crawl at the championship swim meet.

Idioms

to crawl before you walk
1 5.0

To start with simple tasks before trying harder ones

to make someone's skin crawl
  • Informal
7.4

Cause a strong feeling of fear or disgust with a creepy physical feeling

Phrasal Verbs

to crawl with
42 5.1

To be full of many animals or people, often in an unpleasant way

to crawl in
  • Informal
3 3.3

To go to bed slowly because you feel very tired

to crawl over each other
1 3.4

Move over each other on hands and knees, often playfully

to begin to crawl
1 2.8

Start to move or make progress very slowly after being faster

to pub-crawl
  • Informal
7.4

To visit several pubs in one night, drinking at each one

Compounds

crawl space
  • Specialized
15 5.7

A low narrow space under the main floor of a building that people use to reach pipes and wires

pub crawl
  • Informal
4 6.8

A group visiting several pubs or bars and having a drink at each

front crawl
1 3.7

A swimming stroke done face down where arms move alternately over the water and legs kick

Australian crawl
  • Specialized
1 4.6

A swimming stroke where the arms move one after the other above the water and the legs kick fast

turtle-crawl approach
  • Informal
8.2

A very slow way of doing something that wastes time

How Fast

butterfly
19 5.8
to crawl
  • Specialized
11 3.9
dog paddle
2 3.1

Surface Forms

crawl infinitive
crawled past
crawled past participle
crawling present participle
crawls third person singular

Etymology

To crawl in swimming simply means to use the crawl stroke named for that arm action which can remind you of someone crawling, so the verb means to swim in that style.