1

I have been reading a novel for the past few days. I read something that did not sound good to me. I read this sentence in the novel:

This made tears creep to her eyes.

But I did not understand why the writer used the preposition to here. As per my opinion the writer could have used the preposition from instead of to:

This made tears creep from her eyes.

Does this sentence make sense using from?

1 Answer 1

1

The writer probably used the form

This made tears creep to her eyes

to stress that the heroine is not shedding tears yet, but feels on the verge of tears: she feels that she could start shedding tears at any moment.

Sometimes we use the verb to creep to mark that someone or something is approaching stealthily, in an invisible fashion. In our example, other persons might fail to notice the fact that the woman is on the verge of tears, and only she herself feels tears creeping to her eyes, probably against her will or intent.

Judging by Google, the form creep from her eyes is extremely rare, with only 13 occurrences.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .