CREEPS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does creeps mean? 

• CREEPS (noun)
  The noun CREEPS has 2 senses:

1. a disease of cattle and sheep attributed to a dietary deficiency; characterized by anemia and softening of the bones and a slow stiff gait

2. a feeling of fear and revulsion

  Familiarity information: CREEPS used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• CREEPS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A disease of cattle and sheep attributed to a dietary deficiency; characterized by anemia and softening of the bones and a slow stiff gait

Classified under:

Nouns denoting stable states of affairs

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

animal disease (a disease that typically does not affect human beings)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A feeling of fear and revulsion

Classified under:

Nouns denoting feelings and emotions

Context example:

he gives me the creeps

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

fear; fearfulness; fright (an emotion experienced in anticipation of some specific pain or danger (usually accompanied by a desire to flee or fight))

Domain usage:

colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)

 Context examples 

Danger, Bertrand—deadly, pressing danger—which creeps upon you and you know it not.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It creeps over me amazin’ fast.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

She was constantly complaining of the cold, and of its occasioning a visitation in her back which she called “the creeps”.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

There’s only one thing that ever beat me, Sir Charles, and that was my flesh, which creeps over me that amazin’ fast that I’ve always got four stone that ’as no business there.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

It may be that he misses in his mistress, something that enlivened him and made him younger; but he mopes, and his sight is weak, and his limbs are feeble, and my aunt is sorry that he objects to her no more, but creeps near her as he lies on Dora's bed—she sitting at the bedside—and mildly licks her hand.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

It comes from country places, where there was once no harm in it—and it creeps through the dismal streets, defiled and miserable—and it goes away, like my life, to a great sea, that is always troubled—and I feel that I must go with it!

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)