crawlies

noun

"crawlies" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“crawlies” is uncommon English (frequency #82,198 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#82,198
frequency rank, English
5,599
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Fear, anxiety.

Corpus desk

Index EN-crawlies · crawlies · English

crawlies · rank #82,198 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #82,198
  • LEN-LONG 8 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-DENSE 5,599
  • PHOTO-FINISH crasher

Nearest frequency peer: crasher (-1 rank slots)

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Long-tail ranks near “crawlies”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “crawlies” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for crawlies
PropertyValue
Headwordcrawlies
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters8
Frequency rank#82,198
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “crawlies” in English

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).crawliesfalls in this rarity band:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

The axis is logarithmic, with each marked tick roughly ten times rarer than the last. Rare peers in the same band: “crasher” (#82,197), “creepypasta” (#82,199), “crapper” (#82,196). Among 5,599 “C” headwords, “crawlies” is #82,198. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

crawlies is uncommon English at frequency #82,198 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Fear, anxiety.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for crawlies, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

Etymologically, the entry records: From creepy-crawlies. The correct English form is crawlies, spelled C-R-A-W-L-I-E-S.

Definition

  1. 1
    Fear, anxiety.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how crawlies appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. Street light? Was I coming up in somebody's basement? Whatever it was, I was all for light. Trapped is bad. Trapped and blind gives me the crawlies.

Etymology

From creepy-crawlies.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "crawlies"?
"crawlies" is spelled C-R-A-W-L-I-E-S.
What does "crawlies" mean?
As a noun, "crawlies" means: Fear, anxiety.
What is the origin of the word "crawlies"?
From creepy-crawlies. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "crawlies", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list