How to spell crawl

hear itcrawl/krɔl/verbLong vowels

What it means: To move on hands and knees.

In a sentence: The baby can crawl across the soft carpet.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as crawel or crol.

Same family: crawling, crawled, crawler, creep, grovel. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Crawl” comes from Old Norse *krafla*, meaning ‘to claw one’s way’ or ‘creep.’ Over time, English speakers began to use it figuratively for people who ‘crawl’ to someone in fear or to show exaggerated respect.

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

Words like this

author · thorn · major · order · wives · loud · force · horn

Spelling.School is a spaced-repetition spelling practice: ten minutes a day, every word spoken aloud, every miss explained, and every word coming back just before you would forget it. Try five words without signing up.