different between swoop vs creep

English

Etymology

From Middle English swopen, from Old English sw?pan (“to sweep”). See also sweep.

Pronunciation

• enPR: sw?p, IPA^(key): /?swu?p/
• Rhymes: -u?p

Verb

swoop (third-person singular simple present swoops, present participle swooping, simple past and past participle swooped)

1. (intransitive) To fly or glide downwards suddenly; to plunge (in the air) or nosedive.

   The lone eagle swooped down into the lake, snatching its prey, a small fish.

2. (intransitive) To move swiftly, as if with a sweeping movement, especially to attack something.

   The dog had enthusiastically swooped down on the bone.

   • 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

     There was a person called Nana who ruled the nursery. Sometimes she took no notice of the playthings lying about, and sometimes, for no reason whatever, she went swooping about like a great wind and hustled them away in cupboards.

3. (transitive) To fall on at once and seize; to catch while on the wing.
   • Quoted in 1971, The Scriblerian (volumes 4-5, page 2)

     And his Eagles, which can with the same ease as a kite swoops a chicken, snatch up a strong built Chamber of wood 12 foot square, & well crampt & fortified with Iron, with all its furniture, & a man besides, & carry it to the Clouds?

4. (transitive) To seize; to catch up; to take with a sweep.
   • 1670, John Dryden, The Conquest of Granada

     And now at last you come to swoop it all.

   • 1661, Joseph Glanvill, The Vanity of Dogmatizing

     The grazing ox which swoops it [the medicinal herb] in with the common grass.

5. (intransitive) To pass with pomp; to sweep.
   • 1612, Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion song 1 p. 6[1]:

     Proude Tamer swoopes along, with such a lustie traine

     As fits so brave a flood two Countries that divides:

6. (Britain, prison slang) To search the ground for discarded cigarette butts that can be made into new cigarettes.
   • 1989, Michael Bettsworth, Marking Time: A Prison Memoir (page 32)

     He was forever diving into dustbins or swooping on to the ground for cigarette ends.

   • 2015, Noel 'Razor' Smith, The Criminal Alphabet: An A-Z of Prison Slang

     Swooping is picking up discarded cigarette butts from the exercise yard and anywhere else they can be found.

Translations

Noun

swoop (plural swoops)

1. An instance, or the act of suddenly plunging downward.

   The quality of decision is like the well-timed swoop of a falcon which enables it to strike and destroy its victim. – Sun Tzu

   • 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

     One evening, when the Boy was going to bed, he couldn't find the china dog that always slept with him. Nana was in a hurry, and it was too much trouble to hunt for china dogs at bedtime, so she simply looked about her, and seeing that the toy cupboard door stood open, she made a swoop.

2. A sudden act of seizing.
   • 1612, John Webster, The White Devil

     Fortune's a right whore. If she give ought, she deals it in small parcels, that she may take away all at one swoop.

3. (music) A quick passage from one note to the next.
   • 2008, Russell Dean Vines, Composing Digital Music For Dummies (page 281)

     Originally, computers' attempts at making music were recognizable by their beeps and boops and weird swoops.

Translations

See also

• one fell swoop

English

Etymology

From Middle English crepen, from Old English cr?opan (“to creep, crawl”), from Proto-West Germanic *kreupan, from Proto-Germanic *kreupan? (“to twist, creep”), from Proto-Indo-European *gerb- (“to turn, wind”). Cognate with West Frisian krippe, krûpe, West Frisian crjippa (“to creep”), Low German krepen and krupen, Dutch kruipen (“to creep, crawl”), Middle High German kriefen (“to creep”), Danish krybe (“to creep”), Norwegian krype (“to creep”), Swedish krypa (“to creep, crawl”), Icelandic krjúpa (“to stoop”).

The noun is derived from the verb.

Pronunciation

• enPR: kr?p, IPA^(key): /k?i?p/, [k??i?p]
• Rhymes: -i?p

Verb

creep (third-person singular simple present creeps, present participle creeping, simple past crept or creeped or (obsolete) crope, past participle crept or creeped or (archaic) cropen)

1. (intransitive) To move slowly with the abdomen close to the ground.

   Synonym: crawl

2. (intransitive) Of plants, to grow across a surface rather than upwards.
3. (intransitive) To move slowly and quietly in a particular direction.
4. (intransitive) To make small gradual changes, usually in a particular direction.

5. To move in a stealthy or secret manner; to move imperceptibly or clandestinely; to steal in; to insinuate itself or oneself.
6. To slip, or to become slightly displaced.

7. To move or behave with servility or exaggerated humility; to fawn.
8. To have a sensation as of insects creeping on the skin of the body; to crawl.

9. To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable.
10. (intransitive, African-American Vernacular, slang) To covertly have sex (with a person other than one's primary partner); to cheat with.

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

creep (countable and uncountable, plural creeps)

1. The movement of something that creeps (like worms or snails)
2. A relatively small gradual change, variation or deviation (from a planned value) in a measure.
3. A slight displacement of an object: the slight movement of something
4. (uncountable) The gradual expansion or proliferation of something beyond its original goals or boundaries, considered negatively.

5. (publishing) In sewn books, the tendency of pages on the inside of a quire to stand out farther than those on the outside of it.
6. (materials science) An increase in strain with time; the gradual flow or deformation of a material under stress.
7. (geology) The imperceptible downslope movement of surface rock.
8. (informal, derogatory) Someone unpleasantly strange or eccentric.

   Synonym: weirdo
9. (informal, derogatory) A frightening and/or disconcerting person, especially one who gives the speaker chills.

10. (agriculture) A barrier with small openings used to keep large animals out while allowing smaller animals to pass through.

Derived terms

Translations

Anagrams

• Perce, Percé, crepe, crêpe, perce