different between crawl vs writhe

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: krôl, IPA^(key): /k???l/
• (cot–caught merger) enPR: kräl, IPA^(key): /k??l/
• Rhymes: -??l

Etymology 1

From Middle English crawlen, creulen, *cravelen, from Old Norse krafla (compare Danish kravle (“to crawl, creep”), Swedish kravla), from Proto-Germanic *krabl?n? (compare Dutch krabbelen, Low German krabbeln, Middle High German krappeln), frequentative of *krabb?n? (“to scratch, scrape”). More at crab.

Verb

crawl (third-person singular simple present crawls, present participle crawling, simple past and past participle crawled)

1. (intransitive) To creep; to move slowly on hands and knees, or by dragging the body along the ground.
   • 1701, Nehemiah Grew, Cosmologia Sacra

     A worm finds what it searches after only by feeling, as it crawls from one thing to another.

2. (intransitive) To move forward slowly, with frequent stops.

3. (intransitive) To act in a servile manner.
4. (intransitive, with "with") See crawl with.
5. (intransitive) To feel a swarming sensation.

6. (intransitive) To swim using the crawl stroke.

7. (transitive) To move over an area on hands and knees.

8. (Should we delete⁽⁺⁾ this sense?)(intransitive) To visit while becoming inebriated.

9. (transitive) To visit files or web sites in order to index them for searching.

Derived terms

• crawler

Descendants

• German: kraulen

Translations

Noun

crawl (plural crawls)

1. The act of moving slowly on hands and knees etc, or with frequent stops.
2. A rapid swimming stroke with alternate overarm strokes and a fluttering kick.
3. (figuratively) A very slow pace.

   My computer has slowed down to a crawl since I installed that software package.

4. (television, film) A piece of horizontally or vertically scrolling text overlaid on the main image.
   • 22 March 2012, Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Games[2]

     The opening crawl (and a stirring propaganda movie) informs us that “The Hunger Games” are an annual event in Panem, a North American nation divided into 12 different districts, each in service to the Capitol, a wealthy metropolis that owes its creature comforts to an oppressive dictatorship.

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Portuguese: crol, crawl

Translations

Etymology 2

Compare kraal.

Noun

crawl (plural crawls)

1. A pen or enclosure of stakes and hurdles for holding fish.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English crawl.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?ol/

Noun

crawl m (plural crawls)

1. crawl (swimming stroke)

Further reading

• “crawl” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English crawl.

Noun

crawl m (plural crawl)

1. crawl (swimming stroke)

Portuguese

Etymology

Borrowed from English crawl.

Noun

crawl m (uncountable)

1. (proscribed) Alternative spelling of crol

Swedish

Etymology

Borrowed from English crawl.

Noun

crawl c (uncountable)

1. crawl; swimming stroke

Declension

Related terms

• crawla

English

Etymology

From Middle English writhen, from Old English wr?þan, from Proto-West Germanic *wr?þan, from Proto-Germanic *wr?þan? (“to weave, twist, turn”) (compare Old High German r?dan (“to wind, turn”), Old Norse ríða (“to wind”)), from Proto-Indo-European *wreyt- (“to twist, writhe”). Compare Lithuanian ri?sti (“to unbend, wind, roll”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: r?th, IPA^(key): /?a?ð/
• Rhymes: -a?ð

Verb

writhe (third-person singular simple present writhes, present participle writhing, simple past writhed or (archaic) wrothe, past participle writhed or (archaic) writhen)

1. (transitive) To twist, to wring (something).
2. (transitive) To contort (a part of the body).
   • 1906, Alfred Noyes, The Highwayman:

     She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good.

     She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood.

     They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,

     Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,

     Cold, on the stroke of midnight,

     The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

3. (intransitive) To twist or contort the body; to be distorted.
4. (transitive) To extort.

Translations

Noun

writhe (plural writhes)

1. (rare) A contortion.
2. (knot theory) The number of negative crossings subtracted from the number of positive crossings in a knot

Anagrams

• Wither, whiter, wither, wither-

Middle English

Verb

writhe

1. Alternative form of writhen