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Crawl vs Sprawl - What's the difference?

crawl | sprawl |

As verbs the difference between crawl and sprawl

is that crawl is to creep; to move slowly on hands and knees, or by dragging the body along the ground while sprawl is to sit with the limbs spread out.

As nouns the difference between crawl and sprawl

is that crawl is the act of moving slowly on hands and knees etc, or with frequent stops while sprawl is an ungainly sprawling posture.

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.
    • ----

    sprawl

    English

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To sit with the limbs spread out.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1888 , year_published=1994 , publisher=Wordsworth Editions , author= , title=The Man Who Would Be King, and Other Stories , chapter=Baa Baa, Black Sheep citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=4cHkHAU7r9kC&pg=PA159&dq=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to+sprawl%22+-urban&hl=en&ei=OhVOTMSHDciWOPGJgZYD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBzhQ
  • v=onepage&q=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to%20sprawl%22%20-urban&f=false
    • , isbn=9781853262098 , page=159 , passage=There was no special place for him or his little affairs, and he was forbidden to sprawl' on sofas and explain his ideas about the manufacture of this world and his hopes for the future. ' Sprawling was lazy and wore out sofas, and little boys were not expected to talk.}}
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1942 , year_published=2007 , publisher=Down East Enterprises , author=Louise Dickinson Rich , title=We Took to the Woods , chapter=“Do You Get Out Very Often?” citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=LsDXYtxwxygC&pg=PA314&dq=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to+sprawl%22+-urban&hl=en&ei=OhVOTMSHDciWOPGJgZYD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CFMQ6AEwCThQ
  • v=onepage&q=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to%20sprawl%22%20-urban&f=false
    • , isbn=9780892727360 , page=314 , passage=But most of all I like to sit in the dark with all these hearty souls sprawled' around me on the floor and hear them talk. I am sorry to say that I can never believe that floor-'''sprawling is anything but a pose; I have tried it and it is ''not comfortable but it looks well in the flickering fire-light, and is in good magazine-story tradition.}}
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1979 , year_published=1985 , publisher=Gallaudet University Press , author=Thomas S. Spradley, James P. Spradley , title=Deaf Like Me , section=Chapter Six citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=Jhq_4oEbcKcC&pg=PA64&dq=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to+sprawl%22+-urban&hl=en&ei=SBlOTJbXEqSTOJzI_ZUD&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCsQ6AEwATha
  • v=onepage&q=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to%20sprawl%22%20-urban&f=false
    • , isbn=9780930323110 , page=64 , passage=There were pillows on the floor, a few chairs, and four or five students sprawled here and there watching a football game.}}
  • To spread out in a disorderly fashion; to straggle.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1771 , publisher=B. White , editor= , by=Carl Gustav Ekeberg , author=Johann Reinhold Foster , title=A Voyage to China and the East Indies, volume 2 , chapter=Birds and Beasts , volume_plain=A Short Account of the Chinese Husbandry citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=zUkQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA312&dq=sprawl&hl=en&ei=Mh5LTOatOtfcsAavq-RF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAzge
  • v=onepage&q=sprawl&f=false
    • , page=321 , passage=The hatched young ones are ?odl to tho?e who breed them up, and the?e try in the following manner whether they are hatched too ?oon or not: they take hold the little ducks by the bill, and their bodies hang down ; if they ?prawl and extend their feet and wings, they are hatched in due time ; but if they have had too much heat, they hang without any ?truggling.}}
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1914 , year_published=2009 , publisher=BiblioBazaar , author= , title=Cross Trails: The Story of One Woman in the North Woods citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=Ew0CQkAYQkUC&pg=PA116&dq=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to+sprawl%22+-urban&hl=en&ei=vSdLTN7rJYuqsAbU7MhG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwADgK
  • v=onepage&q=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to%20sprawl%22%20-urban&f=false
    • , isbn=9781103051649 , page=116 , passage=A shrewd blow, it caught him off balance, and after one ineffectual stagger he sprawled backward and lay for a moment staring up in blank surprise}}
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=1995 , publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group , author=James H. Hallas , title=Squandered Victory: the American First Army at St. Mihiel , chapter=Eyes on Metz citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=v8CgZ6eJFa8C&pg=PA187&dq=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to+sprawl%22+-urban&hl=en&ei=-xFOTJiDFY6lsQao_fxO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDoQ6AEwBDgo
  • v=onepage&q=sprawled, sprawls, sprawling, %22to%20sprawl%22%20-urban&f=false
    • , isbn=9780275950224 , page=187 , passage=German trucks stood along the road, the drivers dead in the seats or sprawled' on the ground nearby.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2011 , date=October 1 , author=Clive Lindsay , title=Kilmarnock 1 - 2 St Johnstone , work=BBC Sport citation , page= , passage=Bell sprawled full length to turn a Sandaza drive wide of the far post, but Saints had done enough to inflict Killie's first home defeat of the season.}}

    Noun

    (-)
  • An ungainly sprawling posture.
  • A straggling, haphazard growth, especially of housing on the edge of a city.
  • * {{quote-book
    • , year=2006 , publisher=JHU Press , author=Anthony Flint , title=The Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America , section=Introduction: Developing America citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=SmVKMXG28Q0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=sprawl&ei=qhxLTISWK4aWzASZmMG-CQ&cd=10
  • v=onepage&q=sprawl&f=false
    • , isbn=9780801884191 , page=17 , passage=Getting people to think about the future is difficult. Just ask some of the people who end up being most concerned about sprawl —the millions who move into suburban subdivisions, only to have their dreams of the good life spoiled by maddening traffic and water bans, because millions more moved into the next subdivision over.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine
    • , year=1959 , author=William H. Whye Jr. , title=A Plan to Save Vanishing U.S. Countryside , date=August 17, 1959 , volume=47 , issue=7 , page=92 , magazine=Life , publisher=Time, Inc , issn=0024-3019 citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=R0gEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA92&dq=sprawl&hl=en&ei=fB1LTJPFHM_gsAbDzMRG&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBw
  • v=onepage&q=sprawl&f=false
    • , passage=Many of our past difficulties in dealing with sprawl' come from some very mistaken if widely held assumptions. One is that ' sprawl is due to too many people and not enough land. }}
  • * {{quote-magazine
    • , year=1948 , author=Terry B. Augur , title=The Dispersal of Cities—A Feasible Program , date=October 1948 , volume=4 , issue=10 , page=314 , magazine=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , publisher=Educational Foundation for Nuclear Science , issn=0096-3402 citation , pageurl=http://books.google.com/books?id=0QsAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA314&dq=sprawl&hl=en&ei=Mh5LTOatOtfcsAavq-RF&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDEQ6AEwADge
  • v=onepage&q=sprawl&f=false
    • , passage=He briefly compares the relative merits of providing for that growth by the usual method of urban sprawl and by directing it into suburban satellite communities with the integrity preserved and comes out strongly for the latter method. }}

    Derived terms

    * urban sprawl

    See also

    * Los Angelization