creep:
(plural: ‘creeps‘; pronunciation: the letter ‘c’ in this word is said with a ‘k’ sound)
Apart from several other meanings/definitions…
an unpleasant, strange and/or odd person;
a person whose looks are so ugly or cruel that it causes disgust or fear in others,
what a creep!
e.g.
I avoid going to that pub because there you see lots of creeps trying to bully others.
Johnny used to be a gentleman, but these days, especially when he meets up with his new friends, he behaves like a creep.
Creeps often think that others are scared of them because they are powerful, but they never realise that people avoid them because they are disgusting.
‘Creep’ is mostly used in its verb form ‘to creep’ to mean ‘to move on the ground or floor with the whole or part of one’s body touching the surface’ or ‘to slowly but steadily occupying something or showing power or influence over others, e.g. ‘If unchecked, the weeds creep into the main garden and kill the beautiful and expensive garden plants within weeks.’; ‘to crawl’.
For an item of news about a creep that behaves in a creepy way, please click here, and for a blog post that gives tips to women about creeps, please click here. And for an article in which we see this word used as a verb, please click here.
