verbs - Best word to convey a panther's forward crouching/slinking motion



I'm looking for the best word to convey a panther's forward crouching/slinking motion when it is sneaking up on it's victim.


By "best", I mean moving stealthily forward while crouching low and silent, ready to spring at any moment, tension held back, foreboding, graceful, poetic, beautiful, yet terrible.


I'm working on a poem in which this word is key. I once knew the word but it now escapes me. No synonyms in any thesaurus suggest the word I knew/forgot. These are the words I've already considered and rejected: avoid, bypass, conceal oneself, crawl, creep, crouch, dodge, elude, evade, glide, go furtively, go stealthily, hide, lie in wait, lurk, pad, pass quietly, prowl, pussyfoot, shirk, sidle, sidestep, skulk, slack, slide, slink, slip, slither, sly, snake, sneak, snoop, steal, and tiptoe. There are more but I tired of writing them all.


I know that I should be asking something that lends itself to being answered and not something that elicits discussion.


The other question mostly duplicates my question, except perhaps for my poetic criterion, but none of the responses to my question or the other one are the one I'm searching for. I'm afraid I've reached the point of diminishing returns.


Sorry for troubling you.




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