English
grope
Pronunciation
  • (RP) IPA: /ɡɹəʊp/
  • (America) IPA: /ɡɹoʊp/
Verb

grope (gropes, present participle groping; past and past participle groped)

  1. (obsolete) To feel with or use the hands; to handle.
  2. 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.
    • to grope a little longer among the miseries and sensualities of a worldly life
    • 1886 May – 1887 April​, Thomas Hardy, chapter IV, in The Woodlanders [...] In Three Volumes, volume I, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, OCLC 17926498 ↗, page 56 ↗:
      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; [...]
    • 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 40817384 ↗:
      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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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!
  5. (obsolete) To examine; to test; to sound.
    • 1557, Genevan Testament (Acts of the Apostles xxiv)
      ''Felix gropeth him, thinking to have a bribe.
Synonyms Translations Translations Translations Noun

grope (plural gropes)

  1. (informal) An act of groping, especially sexually.
  2. (obsolete) an iron fitting of a medieval cart wheel


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