CREEPER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does creeper mean? 

• CREEPER (noun)
  The noun CREEPER has 3 senses:

1. any plant (as ivy or periwinkle) that grows by creeping

2. a person who crawls or creeps along the ground

3. any of various small insectivorous birds of the northern hemisphere that climb up a tree trunk supporting themselves on stiff tail feathers and their feet

  Familiarity information: CREEPER used as a noun is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CREEPER (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Any plant (as ivy or periwinkle) that grows by creeping

Classified under:

Nouns denoting plants

Hypernyms ("creeper" is a kind of...):

tracheophyte; vascular plant (green plant having a vascular system: ferns, gymnosperms, angiosperms)

Derivation:

creep (grow or spread, often in such a way as to cover (a surface))

Sense 2

Meaning:

A person who crawls or creeps along the ground

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

crawler; creeper

Hypernyms ("creeper" is a kind of...):

individual; mortal; person; somebody; someone; soul (a human being)

Derivation:

creep (move slowly; in the case of people or animals with the body near the ground)

creep (to go stealthily or furtively)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Any of various small insectivorous birds of the northern hemisphere that climb up a tree trunk supporting themselves on stiff tail feathers and their feet

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Synonyms:

creeper; tree creeper

Hypernyms ("creeper" is a kind of...):

oscine; oscine bird (passerine bird having specialized vocal apparatus)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "creeper"):

American creeper; brown creeper; Certhia americana (a common creeper in North America with a down-curved bill)

Certhia familiaris; European creeper (common European brown-and-buff tree creeper with down-curved bill)

Tichodroma muriaria; tichodrome; wall creeper (crimson-and-grey songbird that inhabits town walls and mountain cliffs of southern Eurasia and northern Africa)

Holonyms ("creeper" is a member of...):

Certhiidae; family Certhiidae (creepers)

 Context examples 

There are no creepers here which could bear us.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

But for some disarray (the work, perhaps, of the birds that had fed upon him or of the slow-growing creeper that had gradually enveloped his remains) the man lay perfectly straight—his feet pointing in one direction, his hands, raised above his head like a diver's, pointing directly in the opposite.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

It was a good four miles of a walk, but when we reached it you would not wish to see a more cosy little house: all honeysuckle and creepers, with a wooden porch and lattice windows.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

You get creepers from trees, Massa Malone.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At the foot of a pretty big pine and involved in a green creeper, which had even partly lifted some of the smaller bones, a human skeleton lay, with a few shreds of clothing, on the ground.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

I call them apes, but they carried sticks and stones in their hands and jabbered talk to each other, and ended up by tyin' our hands with creepers, so they are ahead of any beast that I have seen in my wanderin's.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Now and then I encountered a check, and once I had to shin up a creeper for eight or ten feet, but I made excellent progress, and the booming of Challenger's voice seemed to be a great distance beneath me.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)