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Grovelling   Listen
verb
Grovel  v. i.  (past & past part. groveled or grovelled; pres. part. groveling or grovelling)  
1.
To creep on the earth, or with the face to the ground; to lie prone, or move uneasily with the body prostrate on the earth; to lie flat on one's belly, expressive of abjectness; to crawl. "To creep and grovel on the ground."
2.
To tend toward, or delight in, what is sensual or base; to be low, abject, or mean.


adjective
grovelling, groveling  adj.  Lying prone; low; debased; submissive in a self-abasing manner. "A groveling creature."
Synonyms: cringing, wormlike, wormy.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


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"Grovelling" Quotes from Famous Books



... cry broke from the poor young creature, who had fallen forward grovelling in the bed. She struggled to get up, but her limbs were numb, and refused to move. She flung her clasped hands wildly out, and the prayer that she strove to utter broke forth in a sound, that bore with it the last sane thought that she was to ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... avowal would be united to the security of concealment. The serpents in Virgil, after they had destroyed Laocoon, found an asylum from the vengeance of the enraged people behind the shield of the statue of Minerva. And, in the same manner, everything that is grovelling and venomous, everything that can hiss, and everything that can sting, would take sanctuary in the recesses of this ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... great writer, a man with a compelling message to his fellows. It seemed only necessary to reach out his hand in order to grasp a chaplet—a crown. With her the world seemed his debtor. Now he was a thing cast off, a broken boy grovelling at the foot of the ...
— The Light of the Star - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... is necessarily selfish, contracted, grovelling, anxious. Now and then a poor man's heart, when certain beams and dews visit it, may smell like the budding vegetation in yonder garden on this spring day, may feel ripe to evolve in foliage, perhaps ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... hands with both of his, twisted outward as he grasped two fingers in each hand. Robert's face went putty-grey as the bones snapped. Muldoon no longer cared about fair play. His knee came up where it could do most damage, and Robert sank grovelling ...
— Lease to Doomsday • Lee Archer


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