grope
English
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Middle English gropien, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old English grāpian, related to grīpan (whence English gripe); compare also grip.
Pronunciation
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 95: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "RP" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ɡɹəʊp/
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 95: Parameter 1 should be a valid language or etymology language code; the value "GenAm" is not valid. See WT:LOL and WT:LOL/E. IPA(key): /ɡɹoʊp/
- Rhymes: -əʊp
Verb
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- (obsolete) To feel with or use the hands; to handle.
- 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.
- (Can we date this quote by Joseph Stevens Buckminster and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
- to grope a little longer among the miseries and sensualities of a worldly life
- 1898, J. Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, Ch.4:
- 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.
- 1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter III, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915, →OCLC:
- 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.
- (Can we date this quote by Joseph Stevens Buckminster and provide title, author’s full name, and other details?)
- To touch (another person) closely and (especially) sexually.
- We've been together two weeks, and have just been kissing and groping, but no sex yet.
- To intentionally and inappropriately touch another person, in such a manner as to make the contact appear accidental, for the purpose of one's sexual gratification.
- That old man groped that girl on the train!
- (obsolete) To examine; to test; to sound.
- (Can we find and add a quotation of Chaucer to this entry?)
- 1557, Genevan Testament (Acts xxiv)
- Felix gropeth him, thinking to have a bribe.
Translations
obsolete: to feel with or use the hands
|
to search by feeling
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to touch closely and sexually
|
Noun
grope (plural gropes)
- (informal) An act of groping, especially sexually.
- (obsolete) an iron fitting of a medieval cart wheel
- 1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, page 544:
- Gropes appear to be pieces of iron binding together the inner joint of the fitting, and grope-nails to have been used for fastening these to the wood.
Anagrams
Categories:
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/əʊp
- English terms with obsolete senses
- Requests for date/Joseph Stevens Buckminster
- English terms with usage examples
- Requests for quotations/Chaucer
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English informal terms
- English terms with quotations
- en:Sex
- en:Touch