# Cat, creep, food



## LookAtMe

Hello.
The 13 October 2020 Word Reference's Intermediate Word Of The Day is "creep".
In the paragraph "Did you know?" it reads "_It’s also a good verb to describe what a* cat* is doing when it rubs against your legs asking for *food*._ "
Could anyone please provide an example or two that include the words "cat" "creep" and "food"?
Thank you in advance for your replies.


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## Uncle Jack

The source (Intermediate+ Word of the Day: creep – WordReference Word of the Day) describes this meaning of creep: "To_ creep_ also means ‘to behave in a servile way,’ normally in order to get something you want from someone."

However, although the verb "creep" might describe this action of a cat, I doubt anyone would actually use it; it is not a common verb (the noun is far more common) and cats aren't generally seen as being servile.


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## kentix

I think it's a terrible example.

The only way I would use creep with a cat is if the cat was hunting and was *creeping up* on a mouse (or other prey).

In this case it means slowly and secretly approaching. A similar word would be stalking.


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## Hildy1

kentix said:


> I think it's a terrible example.
> 
> The only way I would use creep with a cat is if the cat was hunting and was *creeping up* on a mouse (or other prey).


I agree completely.

 I have never seen a cat creep up to a person and start rubbing against him/her. Describing the rubbing itself as "creeping" is strange.


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## kentix

The cat might be coaxing you, in it's cat way, to feed it.


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## Myridon

Yes, I don't think I've ever heard anyone use the "servile" meaning of "creepy".  We might as well say the cat is being "awful" by showing you that it is full of awe for you.


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## Ponyprof

Agreed. Cats walk up to you and rub against your leg.

They creep when they flatten out and stalk a bird or mouse or spider. The example given in this source is just wrong.


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## Packard

While I would call this "stalking", I can imagine someone calling it "creeping".  And while this probably has something to do with food, I would not want this guy rubbing up against my leg.


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## Myridon

Packard said:


> While I would call this "stalking", I can imagine someone calling it "creeping".


creep - WordReference.com Dictionary of English
Yes but that cat is creeping
1 to move slowly with the body close to the ground, as a reptile or an insect, or a person on hands and knees.​2 to approach slowly, imperceptibly, or stealthily (often fol. by _up_): We crept up and peeked over the wall.​not creeping
6 to move or behave timidly or servilely.​


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## Packard

A side note:  When looking for an example I first looked at lions, tigers, and cougars and did not find good examples.  But when I l looked for "leopards" there were several.  Creepy.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Uncle Jack said:


> cats aren't generally seen as being servile.



That's for sure!

I agree that cats "creep up on" their (intended) prey.


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## LookAtMe

As I have noticed more than once in this Forum, participants engage in detailed debates and exchange of viepoints but tend to lose track of the questions asked on the main post leaving them unanswered.
Could anyone please provide an example or two that include the words "cat" "creep" and "food"?
Thank you in advance for your replies.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Invented by me: "The cat crept up on the bird, but its intended food flew away."


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## Myridon

LookAtMe said:


> Could anyone please provide an example or two that include the words "cat" "creep" and "food"?


The point of the discussion above is that we can't give examples of "creep" with the given meaning as it is rarely used and not something that cats do. The given statement " "_It’s also a good verb to describe what a* cat* is doing when it rubs against your legs asking for *food*._ " is just wrong.

In general on this forum, posters are asked to find their own examples. We aren't supposed to make lists.


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## LookAtMe

ain'ttranslationfun? said:


> Invented by me: "The cat crept up on the bird, but its intended food flew away."


Thank you very much indeed ain'ttranslationfun.


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## kentix

Myridon said:


> "_It’s also a good verb to describe what a* cat* is doing when it rubs against your legs asking for *food*._ " is just wrong.


  

It's unnatural to make a sentence with those words.

Even in ain'ttranslationfun's sentence, saying "meal" instead of "food" would be much more natural.


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## Myridon

LookAtMe said:


> Could anyone please provide an example or two that include the words "cat" "creep" and "food"?


The creep opened a can of cat food.


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## kentix

"He decided to creep up on the house and look through the window, but all he saw was a cat eating its food."

It's easy to make pointless sentences with random words. But that doesn't help illustrate a meaningless definition.


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## london calling

LookAtMe said:


> Hello.
> The 13 October 2020 Word Reference's Intermediate Word Of The Day is "creep".
> In the paragraph "Did you know?" it reads "_It’s also a good verb to describe what a* cat* is doing when it rubs against your legs asking for *food*._ "
> Could anyone please provide an example or two that include the words "cat" "creep" and "food"?
> Thank you in advance for your replies.


As a cat lover I entirely disagree with this. A cat that wants to be fed will make it perfectly clear, but they don't creep. Cats creep up on their prey, not on the people that feed them. I have no idea who contributed this to WR but they clearly know nothing about cats.


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## Myridon

The context has been quoted in two separate pieces.  Let me join them back together:
Intermediate+ Word of the Day: creep – WordReference Word of the Day


> To_ creep_ also means* ‘to behave in a servile way,’ *normally in order to get something you want from someone. For example, someone in a class might creep to the teacher or someone at work might creep to the boss. It’s also a good verb to describe *what a cat is doing when* it rubs against your legs asking for food. Another way to say this, more informally, is “to suck up to someone.”


No.  Just no.


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## velisarius

I couldn't use the verb with that meaning either, but "a creep" may behave in a servile way. 

_Cats are such creeps; they're all over you when they want some food, and ignore you whenever it suits them. _I'd call that "personification", because animals shouldn't be judged by human criteria.


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## london calling

It also isn't true.


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## Uncle Jack

I wonder if anyone can actually think of "creep" (verb) being used with the meaning "behave in a servile way". I have no problem with the verb being used like this in theory, since the noun "creep" means "someone who behaves in a servile way", but I find I cannot come up with any sentence that uses this meaning of the verb, cat or no cat.

OED bundles several meanings together:
b. To move timidly or diffidently; to proceed humbly, abjectly, or servilely, to cringe; to move on a low level, without soaring or aspiring. Cf. creeping adj.​but even so, most of the quotes used to illustrate this use could equally well refer to crawling (as in post #8 in this thread) or moving slowly. None of them obviously embody the same sense as the noun.

I'd happily refer to a cat as a creep (noun), and velisarius' example in post #21 sounds fine to me.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Uncle Jack, I for one can't think of "creep" (verb") being used with the meaning "behave in a servile way". At least I wouldn't use it with that meaning.


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## kentix

The only use I've ever heard in AE as a verb is to move slowly.  It's often stealthy, too, but not always. Cars can creep along when there's a traffic backup.

As a noun, the only thing it means to me in American English is someone who is socially inappropriate in a borderline scary or obnoxious way.

It has nothing to do with servility, in my life experience. 

_since the noun "creep" means "someone who behaves in a servile way"_

I have no familiarity with that meaning.


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## london calling

.Cats are not creeps, because first and foremost it's a stupid thing to say of any animal: they're not humans and should not be judged in human terms. And yes, I know we all do it, but sometimes I feel positively sick when I hear the way people talk about their pets. 

I agree with what you say about the verb, though. 😊


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## Ponyprof

Myridon said:


> The context has been quoted in two separate pieces.  Let me join them back together:
> Intermediate+ Word of the Day: creep – WordReference Word of the Day
> 
> No.  Just no.



That's just all wrong. To creep is a verb describing an action which is to move slowly, with stealth, and in an animal, close to the ground. You can creep in a servile manner, or in a secretive manner, or to "creep up" on a target or prey.

I'll go on to say the obvious, that the adjective and noun "creep" applied to people is in wide usage to mean a person that has some combination of being repulsive or having repulsive behaviour, and is widely applied to sexual predators and pedophiles, as in the vigilante group "Creep Catchers" that tries to entrap would-be online pedophiles. 

"Creepy" also gets used to refer to desolate and scary environments such as haunted houses (IRL or Halloween fun), and horror movies. 

The casual verb expression "to creep somebody  out"  means the person, film, idea, place, sight, etc., raises feelings of disgust and horror in somebody. "That film really creeped me out.'

I say all this to point out that the expanded current meaning of "creep" as noun and adjective and even verb is involved with things that are repulsive and horrifying, and the idea of servility is not present in the term.


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## velisarius

Baddies in books: Uriah Heep, the smarmiest creep in Dickens

Heep the schemer put on an ostentatious show of obsequiousness. In his false servility he was the ultimate creep.



Ponyprof said:


> [...]
> I say all this to point out that the expanded current meaning of "creep" as noun and adjective and even verb is involved with things that are repulsive and horrifying, and the idea of servility is not present in the term.


 I think it (the noun) still is in BE, though the adjective is very strongly associated nowadays with the idea of the creepy male who stalks young women or children.


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## Uncle Jack

velisarius said:


> I think it (the noun) still is in BE


Very much so, I would have thought. It would never occur to me to use "creep" as a noun for a sexual predator or paedophile - it simply isn't strong enough. We might find a creep unpleasant, but not evil. 

"Creepy" (adjective) seems to have very little to do with "creep" (noun) in BrE; the adjective means disquieting or scary, neither of which I detect in the noun "creep", and this sort of creepiness could tend to evil.


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## kentix

Those two have merged in the U.S. to the adjective meaning.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

kentix said:


> Those two have merged in the U.S. to the adjective meaning.



Adjective; but verb?


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## kentix

Adjective and noun. A creep is creepy. A creep isn't servile.


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## Roxxxannne

ain'ttranslationfun? said:


> Adjective; but verb?


There is nothing in the verb 'creep' as used in AmE that has anything to do with servility. Cars creep forward in heavy traffic, animals creep toward their prey, and babies creep when they are learning to crawl.  A piece of furniture can creep across the floor if vibrations in the flooring cause it to move over a long period of time.  Glaciers creep down into valleys.  But none of this is servile.


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## Keith Bradford

kentix said:


> ... A creep isn't servile.


Kentix, what you say may be true of the USA, but I hope you're not trying to make out that it's universally so.  I can tell you from personal knowledge that this was British schoolboy slang in the 1950s, meaning indeed _someone who is obsequious, a flatterer, a toady, a teacher's pet, an arselicker_... related to _creeping Jesus_ which adds sanctimony to the brew.

Unlikely to correlate with cats: mine rubs round my legs for his breakfast, true, but the subsequent sharp bite at my ankle reveals that this is the opposite of obsequious.


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## velisarius

I thought everyone knew that "cats are creeps, dogs are a**holes".

We too can be divided into two types: Something's Creepy in the May Issue of Esquire


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## kentix

Keith Bradford said:


> Kentix, what you say may be true of the USA, but I hope you're not trying to make out that it's universally so.


No, I'm not, which is why I said this:



kentix said:


> Those two have merged in the U.S. to the adjective meaning.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

Keith Bradford said:


> Kentix, what you say may be true of the USA, but I hope you're not trying to make out that it's universally so.  I can tell you from personal knowledge that this was British schoolboy slang in the 1950s, meaning indeed _someone who is obsequious, a flatterer, a teacher's pet, an arselicker_... related to _creeping Jesus_ which adds sanctimony to the brew.
> 
> 
> 
> In the context of the schoolroom, there's also "an apple-polisher" from the expresion "an apple for the teacher";ther's alsoth expression "to butter up" but I don't think there's a corresponding noun. By the way, could that also be "creeper" which I think I may have seen?
Click to expand...


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## kentix

I think I've seen creeper in old movies used as a synonym for something like a peeping Tom.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

kentix said:


> I think I've seen creeper in old movies used as a synonym for something like a peeping Tom.



That may have been what I was thinking of.


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## velisarius

A creeping, peeping tomcat?


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## kentix

peep·ing Tom
/ˌpēpiNG ˈtäm/

_noun_

a person who derives sexual pleasure from secretly watching people undressing or engaging in sexual activity.
Most often through a window with open curtains.


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## velisarius

I know, I know. Just thought the thread had crept too far away from the original context.


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## kentix

It was for the benefit of those who might not speak English as a first language. 

But that's what a creep is in the U.S., so I think it's on target for those of us who don't think creep describes a cat at all.


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## ain'ttranslationfun?

velisarius said:


> I know, I know. Just thought the thread had crept too far away from the original context.



That's food for thought. It's also creeping away from the OP's question. (This is getting silly; Look At Me, there's really no point, in my opinion, in trying to find/invent a sentence with 'cat, creep, food.)


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## Roxxxannne

Agreed.  
This reminds me of the vocabulary tests we had as kids: The teacher would say "Use cat, creep, and food in a sentence."
And someone (certainly not me ) would write "The teacher told us to use cat, creep, and food in a sentence."


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## LookAtMe

ain'ttranslationfun? said:


> (This is getting silly; Look At Me, there's really no point, in my opinion, in trying to find/invent a sentence with 'cat, creep, food.)


Yes. I am now starting to get a clearer picture of Word Of The Day. At times they come up with words that most Anglos rarely use, if at all, examples that sound odd even to English natives and even plain mistakes.
Hoot  money to be paid for something
is sure be available  is sure be valuable
The slay of the loom  The slay of the loom


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