Grovel
['ɡrɑvl]
Definition
(adv.) 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 fiat on one's belly, expressive of abjectness; to crawl.
(adv.) To tend toward, or delight in, what is sensual or base; to be low, abject, or mean.
Checker: Raffles
Synonyms and Synonymous
v. n. Creep, crawl, sneak, fawn, cringe, lie low, lie prone.
Checker: Marty
Synonyms and Antonyms
SYN:Crawl, cringe, wallow, creep, grub, fawn, grabble
ANT:Soar, aspire, mount, rise
Typed by Enid
Definition
v.i. to crawl on the earth esp. in abject fear &c.: to be base or mean:—pr.p. grov′elling; pa.p. grov′elled.—n. Grov′eller.—adj. Grov′elling mean.
Edited by Andrea
Examples
- Are you to be happy, while I grovel in the intensity of my wretchedness? Mary Shelley. Frankenstein_Or_The Modern Prometheus.
- Tortures and ignominies shall be heaped upon you until you grovel at my feet asking the boon of death. Edgar Rice Burroughs. The Gods of Mars.
- And am I to grovel in the dust for HIM to walk over? Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- Juries,' said Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane tightly, as was his wont when working into a passion: 'juries is ineddicated, vulgar, grovelling wretches. Charles Dickens. Oliver Twist.
- Do you see those grovelling and wandering eyes? Charles Dickens. Great Expectations.
- And she felt she could not bear it any more, in a few minutes she would fall down at his feet, grovelling at his feet, and letting him destroy her. D. H. Lawrence. Women in Love .
- The feeble voice of those grovelling passions cannot extend so far either in time or distance. Benjamin Franklin. Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin.
- The ladders are thrown down, replied Rebecca, shuddering; the soldiers lie grovelling under them like crushed reptiles--The besieged have the better. Walter Scott. Ivanhoe.
- It was a grovelling fashion of existence: I should never like to return to it. Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre.
- I Presently the rude Real burst coarsely in--all evil grovelling and repellent as she too often is. Charlotte Bronte. Villette.
- The whole indecorous threadbare ruin, from the broken shoes to the prematurely-grey scanty hair, grovelled. Charles Dickens. Our Mutual Friend.
- Whenever he met a great man he grovelled before him, and my-lorded him as only a free-born Briton can do. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- And he who grovels in the world of sense, and has only this uncertain perception of things, is not a philosopher, but a lover of opinion only. Plato. The Republic.
Inputed by Bobbie