Crawl vs Craw - What's the difference?

As verbs the difference between crawl and craw

is that crawl is to creep; to move slowly on hands and knees, or by dragging the body along the ground while craw is to caw, crow, for certain birds to make their cry.

As nouns the difference between crawl and craw

is that crawl is the act of moving slowly on hands and knees etc, or with frequent stops while craw is the stomach of an animal.

crawl

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) crawlen, (m), ‘to scratch, scrape’. More at (l).

Verb

(en verb)

To creep; to move slowly on hands and knees, or by dragging the body along the ground.

* Grew

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

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)

, chapter=7 citation , passage=‘Children crawled over each other like little grey worms in the gutters,’ he said. ‘The only red things about them were their buttocks and they were raw. Their faces looked as if snails had slimed on them and their mothers were like great sick beasts whose byres had never been cleared. […]’}}

To move forward slowly, with frequent stops.

To act in a servile manner.

* Shakespeare

hath crawled into the favour of the king

See crawl with.

To feel a ing sensation.

To swim using the crawl stroke.

To move over an area on hands and knees.

To visit while becoming inebriated.

To visit files or web sites in order to index them for searching.

Derived terms

* crawler

Descendants

* German:

Noun

(en noun)

The act of moving slowly on hands and knees etc, or with frequent stops

A rapid swimming stroke with alternate overarm strokes and a fluttering kick

(television, film) A piece of horizontally scrolling text overlaid on the main image.

* 22 March 2012 , Scott Tobias, AV Club The Hunger Games [http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-hunger-games,71293/]

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

* front crawl * pub crawl * urban crawl

Etymology 2

Compare kraal.

Noun

(en noun)

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

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craw

English

Noun

(en noun)

(archaic) The stomach of an animal.

The crop of a bird.

Synonyms

* crop * gullet

Derived terms

* stick in one’s craw

Verb

(en verb)

(archaic) to caw, crow, for certain birds to make their cry

*{{quote-book, year=1828, author=David Macbeth Moir, title=The Life of Mansie Wauch, chapter=, edition= citation

, passage=The night was now pitmirk; the wind soughed amid the head-stones and railings of the gentry, (for we must all die,) and the black corbies in the steeple-holes cackled and crawed in a fearsome manner. }}