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Crawler
Definitions
- 1 A child who is able to creep using its hands and knees but is not able to walk.
- 2 A person who is abused, physically or verbally, and returns to the abuser a supplicant. Australia, obsolete
- 3 terrestrial worm that burrows into and helps aerate soil; often surfaces when the ground is cool or wet; used as bait by anglers wordnet
- 4 A crawl swimmer.
- 5 A sycophant. Australia, UK, slang
Show 7 more definitions
- 6 a person who crawls or creeps along the ground wordnet
- 7 A tractor crawler, a motorized vehicle that uses caterpillar tracks instead of wheels.
- 8 a person who tries to please someone in order to gain a personal advantage wordnet
- 9 A software bot that autonomously follows connected paths such as links between web pages. Internet
"Crawler-based search engines have three major elements. The first is the spider, also called the crawler, which visits a web page, reads it, and then follows links to other pages within the site."
- 10 A mobile stage in the development of stationary hemipteran insects such as scale insects—generally the first instar.
- 11 A cab that is driven slowly along while its driver looks out for a fare. UK, obsolete, slang
- 12 Synonym of crawler crane.
Etymology
From crawl (“to move slowly, by dragging the body along the ground”) + -er.
From crawl (“to act in a servile manner”) + -er. From the Australian convict period (1788–1850); a prisoner who was purposely and extensively abused by an overseer (also a convict) and thereby driven to escape but who, finding it impossible to survive in the Australian bush, surrenders to this overseer, who would then have his penal term reduced. The particular crawler was picked for his weak personality and might escape and return a number of times increasing his own penal term each time. According to James Tucker, some convict overseers had their sentences extensively reduced using this odious practice.
See also for "crawler"
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