THE CREEPS Definition & Meaning

the creeps

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Idioms and Phrases

Also, the willies . A sensation of horror or repugnance, as in That weird man gives me the creeps , or I get the willies when I hear that dirge music . The first of these colloquial terms alludes to a sensation of something crawling on one's skin. Charles Dickens used it in David Copperfield (1849) to describe a physical ailment: “She was constantly complaining of the cold and of its occasioning a visitation in her back, which she called ‘the creeps.’” But soon after it was used to describe fear and loathing. The variant dates from the late 1800s, and both its allusion and origin are unclear.

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

Now Crawley is up against a New Zealand team that gives him the creeps.

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Through her, women can feel like they're laughing in the faces of the creeps and weirdoes who want to take away their freedom and happiness.

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Or put more bluntly: Vance was chosen to appeal to the creeps and weirdoes.

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First up, a product I’m seeing on lots and lots of actual year-end gift guide lists, but which has given me the creeps since it entered the market.

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He will stop at nothing — Nothing! — to make the creeps who killed his son pay with their lives.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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the creeps

Idioms and Phrases

Example Sentences