crawler

noun

crawl·​er ˈkrȯ-lər How to pronounce crawler (audio)
1
: one that crawls
2
: a vehicle (such as a crane) that travels on endless chain belts

Examples of crawler in a Sentence

he's always the crawler who makes everyone else late
Recent Examples on the Web Trolling either crawler harnesses or crankbaits is a popular ploy, especially when pulled behind in-line planer boards or with lead core line. David A. Rose, Field & Stream, 20 Mar. 2024 The Internet Archive uses a crawler to store webpages for posterity. Peter Rubin, Longreads, 15 Feb. 2024 The company uses a web crawler of its own design, known as PerplexityBot, to index the Internet. IEEE Spectrum, 24 Feb. 2024 Going further, The Washington Post reported that Reddit is ready to play hard ball: If a deal can’t be reached, Reddit is considering blocking search crawlers from Google and Bing, which would prevent the forum from being discovered in searches and reduce the number of visitors to the site. Scharon Harding, Ars Technica, 23 Oct. 2023 The startup used Internet Archive data to establish when each website started blocking AI crawlers; many did so soon after OpenAI announced its crawler would respect robots.txt flags in August 2023. Kate Knibbs, WIRED, 24 Jan. 2024 The developers didn’t want to build another hack-and-slash game or dungeon crawler. Gieson Cacho, The Mercury News, 5 Mar. 2024 These crawlers index websites and enable the kind of search that brings back relevant and up-to-date results you are used to. Julius Černiauskas, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2024 Bing’s crawlers do the same, and Microsoft licenses its database to other search engines and companies. Peter Rubin, Longreads, 15 Feb. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'crawler.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

First Known Use

1607, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Time Traveler
The first known use of crawler was in 1607

Dictionary Entries Near crawler

Cite this Entry

“Crawler.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crawler. Accessed 4 May. 2024.

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