Meaning
In British youth slang, especially in London-associated speech, creps means trainers or sneakers.
How it is used
Cambridge's New Words coverage records crep/creps as teenage slang for a shoe, while a Cambridge sociolinguistic study of roadman stylisation explicitly shows trainers being rendered as creps in an MLE-styled performance. Dictionary.com, drawing on Collins material, independently records creps as a British informal name for training shoes. The term is therefore best understood as footwear vocabulary rather than as a word that identifies one ethnicity or subculture.
Examples
- “Those new creps look clean.”
- “I need different creps for the walk home.”
- “He saved up for a fresh pair of creps.”
Pronunciation
/krɛps/ · kreps
Tone and register
Casual and fashion-oriented. It can sound strongly youth-coded or urban depending on speaker and setting, but it is ordinarily neutral when referring to footwear.
Visitor guidance
Visitors can read creps as trainers or sneakers. The form is usually plural, even when discussing footwear as a category, and standard trainers is clearer in formal or mixed-audience contexts. Do not assume that someone who says creps is performing a roadman identity; the word circulates more widely than that stereotype.
Cultural context
Creps sits at the intersection of London youth language, sneaker culture, grime and rap style, and wider British informal speech. Academic discussion is especially useful because it shows how familiar vocabulary such as creps can be bundled into parodies of a roadman persona even though individual MLE-linked words have broader social lives. Maperla keeps the practical footwear meaning separate from those stereotypes.
Places represented
Open the reviewed place guide for each regional sense carried by this canonical entry.