creepy
- 1Causing fearful unease, a feeling as if something were crawling over your skin.
The basement was creepy, with cobwebs everywhere and a single bulb swinging overhead.
Every Halloween the neighbors cover their lawn with creepy ghosts and plastic skeletons.
UsageA place or thing is creepy; the person who feels it is usually creeped out, or says it gives them the creeps.
Similareerie, spooky, scary, sinister, unsettling
- 2Of a person or their behavior: odd or eccentric in a way that leaves others uneasy or repelled.
It was creepy the way the clerk repeated everything I said in a flat voice.
The landlord turned out to be even creepier than the reviews said: he left notes about what I cooked each night.
UsageOften it's creepy how or the way someone acts; a bit creepy softens it.
- 3Making others uneasy by acting in sexually inappropriate ways, such as leering.
Several women at the gym complained about a creepy regular who watched them in the mirror and made comments about their bodies.
The bartender asked him to leave after he got creepy with a customer, touching her arm and asking if she was single.
UsageCalling a person creepy can suggest this even if you mean odd; for plain oddness, strange or weird is safer.
Similarsleazy, lecherous, lewd
Note
Here the oddness of odd, unsettling behavior narrows to unwanted sexual attention: leering, staring, remarks about someone's body, a camera pointed where it should not be.
- 4Getting from place to place by creeping.
The Beaver brought paper, portfolio, pens, / And ink in unfailing supplies: / While strange creepy creatures came out of their dens, / And watched them with wondering eyes.
1874, Lewis Carroll [pseudonym; Charles Lutwidge Dodgson], “Fit the Fit the Fifth. The Beaver’s Lesson.”Note
Creep plus -y gives this plain physical meaning, in which a creepy creature is simply one that creeps. It survives mostly inside creepy-crawly, a playful name for small crawling creatures, because creepy on its own now suggests something frightening rather than something slow. Lewis Carroll, writing in the 1870s, could still describe strange creepy creatures coming out of their dens to watch.
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- Creepy is formed from creep plus the suffix -y. en.wiktionary.org
- The Carroll example dates to the 1870s: The Hunting of the Snark was first published in March 1876. en.wikipedia.org
- Carroll describes strange creepy creatures emerging from their dens and watching in The Hunting of the Snark. gutenberg.org
Less common meaning
- 5Of a person: uneasy and afraid, as when something gives you the creeps.
UsageFor this feeling, creeped out is safer; felt creepy can sound as if you were the odd one.
Similaruneasy, jumpy, nervous, scared, frightened
Oppositecalm
Note
In this use the unease sits with the person, not with whatever causes it: a dark room is creepy, and you feel creepy inside it, like the character in Algernon Blackwood's First Hate who felt creepy and afraid.
Practice
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Origin
From creep + -y. Creep goes back through Middle English crepen and Old English crēopan to Proto-Germanic *kreupaną.
Checked 3 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- Creepy is formed from creep and -y. en.wiktionary.org
- Creep descends through Middle English crepen and Old English crēopan from Proto-Germanic *kreupaną. en.wiktionary.org