creep

   A term Originally used of someone trying to gain another’s favour by being unduly flattering. The term came into American student slang use in the 1930s, with the underlying idea of someone who made your flesh creep. It is probably still more used in the USA than Britain, and has become a general insult for an obnoxious person, its intensity differing according to the accompanying words. ‘Don’t push me, creep!’ says a man to another in Oliver’s Story, by Erich Segal. A policeman uses it to a male suspect, very aggressively, in I’ll Take Manhattan, by Judith Krantz. ‘You mother-fucking little creep’ is not meant to please the man to whom it is addressed in Getting it Right, by Elizabeth Jane Howard. In Rabbit Redux, by John Updike, a girl calls a man ‘you creep’, then expands it to ‘you baby-killing creep’. ‘You creep’ used by one Australian man to another occurs in A Salute to the Great McCarthy, by Barry Oakley, while ‘you miserable creep’ is said by an actress to an actor in Festival, by N.J.Crisp. Up the City Road, by John Stroud, has ‘you dirty old creep’ addressed to a middle-aged man by a young woman, who also calls him ‘you dirty old man’.