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grovelling

   Also found in: Legal, Idioms, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
grov·el  (grvl, grv-)
intr.v. grov·eled also grov·elled, grov·el·ing also grov·el·ling, grov·els also grov·els
1. To behave in a servile or demeaning manner; cringe.
2. To lie or creep in a prostrate position, as in subservience or humility.
3. To give oneself over to base pleasures: "Have we not groveled here long enough, eating and drinking like mere brutes?" (Walt Whitman).
[Back-formation from obsolete groveling, prone, face downward, from Middle English : (on) grufe, face downwards (from Old Norse grfu, from grfa, to grovel) + -ling, adv. suff.; see -ling2.]
grovel·er n.
ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms
Adj.1.grovelling - totally submissive
cringing, groveling, wormlike, wormy
submissive - inclined or willing to submit to orders or wishes of others or showing such inclination; "submissive servants"; "a submissive reply"; "replacing troublemakers with more submissive people"
Translations
grovelling groveling (US) [ˈgrɒvlɪŋ] ADJ → rastrero, servil
grovelling, (US) groveling
adj → kriecherisch (inf), → unterwürfig
n → Kriecherei f (inf), → Speichelleckerei f (inf)


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? Mentioned in ? References in classic literature
 
A brute insidious, plundering, grovelling, That aye must lie, That wittingly, wilfully, aye must lie: For booty lusting, Motley masked, Self-hidden, shrouded, Himself his booty- HE--of truth the wooer?
Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book For All And None by Nietzsche, Friedrich View in context
It was the exhilarating effect -- upon a prisoner just escaped from the dungeon of his own heart -- of breathing the wild, free atmosphere of an unredeemed, unchristianised, lawless region His spirit rose, as it were, with a bound, and attained a nearer prospect of the sky, than throughout all the misery which had kept him grovelling on the earth.
The Scarlet Letter by Hawthorne, Nathaniel View in context
"He was amazed, how so impotent and grovelling an insect as I" (these were his expressions) "could entertain such inhuman ideas, and in so familiar a manner, as to appear wholly unmoved at all the scenes of blood and desolation which I had painted as the common effects of those destructive machines; whereof," he said, "some evil genius, enemy to mankind, must have been the first contriver.
Gulliver's Travels by Swift, Jonathan View in context
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