Grovel
verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 To be prone on the ground. intransitive
- 2 show submission or fear wordnet
- 3 To crawl. intransitive
"In the tube station, the old ones who were on the way out / Would dribble and vomit and grovel and shout"
- 4 To abase oneself before another person. intransitive
"She refused to grovel in front of the bully, standing her ground."
- 5 To be slavishly nice to someone or apologize in the hope of securing something. intransitive
"He had to grovel before his boss after missing the important meeting."
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- 6 To take pleasure in mundane activities. intransitive
Example
More examples"In the tube station, the old ones who were on the way out / Would dribble and vomit and grovel and shout"
Etymology
From Middle English *grovelen, from Old Norse grufla, grœfla (“to grovel”), from Proto-Germanic *grubilōną (“to dig, delve into”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ‑ (“to dig, scrape, scrabble, scratch”); akin to Old Norse á grufu (“on one's belly”) ( > Old Norse grúfa (“to lie face down, grovel”)). Cognate with Scots grovel, gruvil (“to grovel”), German grübeln (“to meditate, ponder”), Norwegian Nynorsk gruvla (“to grovel”). Compare also West Frisian groebeltsje (“to make a mess, skip school, skive”), Dutch grobbelen (“to grope, root, grub”).
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.