creep vs worm

creep

verb
  • To move slowly with the abdomen close to the ground. 

  • To slip, or to become slightly displaced. 

  • To move or behave with servility or exaggerated humility; to fawn. 

  • To covertly have sex (with a person other than one's primary partner); to cheat with. 

  • To grow across a surface rather than upwards. 

  • To move slowly and quietly in a particular direction. 

  • To have a sensation as of insects creeping on the skin of the body; to crawl. 

  • To make small gradual changes, usually in a particular direction. 

  • To drag in deep water with creepers, as for recovering a submarine cable. 

  • To move in a stealthy or secret manner; to move imperceptibly or clandestinely; to steal in; to insinuate itself or oneself. 

noun
  • The imperceptible downslope movement of surface rock. 

  • Someone unpleasantly strange or eccentric. 

  • A barrier with small openings used to keep large animals out while allowing smaller animals to pass through. 

  • A relatively small gradual change, variation or deviation (from a planned value) in a measure. 

  • A slight displacement of an object; the slight movement of something. 

  • The gradual expansion or proliferation of something beyond its original goals or boundaries, considered negatively. 

  • A frightening and/or disconcerting person, especially one who gives the speaker chills. 

  • The movement of something that creeps (like worms or snails). 

  • An increase in strain with time; the gradual flow or deformation of a material under stress. 

  • In sewn books, the tendency of pages on the inside of a quire to stand out farther than those on the outside of it. 

worm

verb
  • To move with one's body dragging the ground. 

  • To work one's way by artful or devious means. 

  • To fill in the contlines of (a rope) before parcelling and serving. 

  • To drag out of, to get information that someone is reluctant or unwilling to give (through artful or devious means or by pleading or asking repeatedly). 

  • To clean by means of a worm; to draw a wad or cartridge from, as a firearm. 

  • To cut the worm, or lytta, from under the tongue of (a dog, etc.) for the purpose of checking a disposition to gnaw, and formerly supposed to guard against canine madness. 

  • To make (one's way) with a crawling motion. 

  • To effect, remove, drive, draw, or the like, by slow and secret means. 

  • To work (one's way or oneself) (into) gradually or slowly; to insinuate. 

  • To deworm (an animal). 

noun
  • Either a mythical "dragon" (especially wingless), a gigantic sea serpent, or a creature that resembles a Mongolian death worm. 

  • A strip of linked tiles sharing parallel edges in a tiling. 

  • The condensing tube of a still, often curved and wound to save space. 

  • The spiral wire of a corkscrew. 

  • Anything helical, especially the thread of a screw. 

  • A self-replicating program that propagates through a network. 

  • A short revolving screw whose threads drive, or are driven by, a worm wheel or rack by gearing into its teeth. 

  • A graphical representation of the total runs scored in an innings. 

  • More loosely, any of various tubular invertebrates resembling annelids but not closely related to them, such as velvet worms, acorn worms, flatworms, or roundworms. 

  • A spiral instrument or screw, often like a double corkscrew, used for drawing balls from firearms. 

  • An internal tormentor; something that gnaws or afflicts one’s mind with remorse. 

  • The lytta. 

  • A contemptible or devious being. 

  • A dance, or dance move, in which the dancer lies on the floor and undulates the body horizontally thereby moving forwards. 

  • A muscular band in the tongue of some animals, such as dogs; the lytta. 

  • A generally tubular invertebrate of the annelid phylum; an earthworm. 

How often have the words creep and worm occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )