grope
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ɡɹəʊp/
ipa: /ɡɹoʊp/
rhymes: -əʊp
Forms: form: gropes
form: groping
form: groped
form: groped
Etymology: From Middle English gropien, from Old English grāpian, related to grīpan (whence English gripe); compare also grip.
Senses: glosses: To feel with or use the hands; to handle.
examples: text: a. 1812. Joseph Stevens Buckminster, sermon
to grope about a little longer among the miseries and sensualities of a worldly life
text: In the hollow shades of the roof could be seen pale dangling arms of ivy which had crept through the joints of the tiles and were groping in vain for some support, their leaves being dwarfed and sickly for want of sunlight; [...]
ref: 1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter IV, in The Woodlanders […], volume I, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 56:
text: Yet there was no time to be lost if I was ever to get out alive, and so I groped with my hands against the side of the grave until I made out the bottom edge of the slab, and then fell to grubbing beneath it with my fingers. But the earth, which the day before had looked light and loamy to the eye, was stiff and hard enough when one came to tackle it with naked hands, and in an hour's time I had done little more than further weary myself and bruise my fingers.
ref: [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC:
text: Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
ref: 1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III (Accessory After the Fact), page 382, column 1:
text: Through the darkest sky, groping for the light / Like crying for the moon / Never-ending black, forgot what I want / Never felt that hard to me
ref: 2021, “The Roar of the Spark”, in Naoki Hashimoto (lyrics), Daisuke Ishiwatari (music), Necessary Discrepancy:
glosses: To search or attempt to find something in the dark, or, as a blind person, by feeling; to move about hesitatingly, as in darkness or obscurity; to feel one's way, as with the hands, when one can not see.
examples: text: The parents found the couple kissing and groping.
glosses: To touch (another person) closely and (especially) sexually.
examples: text: That old man groped that girl on the train!
glosses: To intentionally and inappropriately touch or rub against another person, in such a manner as to make the contact appear accidental, for the purpose of one's sexual gratification.
examples: text: Felix gropeth him, thinking to have a bribe.
ref: 1557, Geneva Bible (Acts xxiv)
glosses: To examine; to test; to sound.
Synonyms: sense: to feel with the hands
word: touch
word: feel
sense: to search by feel
word: fumble
word: glaum
word: root
word: feel around
sense: to touch sexually
word: caress
word: feel up
word: touch up
word: fondle
Derived terms: agrope
gropeable
gropefest
groper
gropery
gropingly
gropy