groove
/ɡruːv
/noun
1A long, narrow cut or depression in a hard material.And that is why we are having a very hard look at the grooves on club-faces right now....
- You see the city as a solid mass in which there have been carved narrow grooves, criss-crossing this stone block thousands of times.
- Some of these channels were as wide as rivers, others narrow grooves.
Synonyms
furrow, channel, trench, trough, canal, gouge, hollow, indentation, rut, gutter, cutting, cut, score, fissure, seam
technical rabbet, rebate
1.1A spiral track cut in a record, into which the stylus fits.They may rely on as simple an explanation as that of a print of a coin in wax, or they may, like Wittgenstein, use examples such as the structural analogy between music and the groove in a gramophone record....
- Anyway, the way it worked was that this needle scratched around the grooves of the disc and the vibrations were translated into sound.
- Of course, the smaller groove also required a smaller needle, and that, too, was made possible by World War II materials technology.
1.2 Climbing An indentation where two planes of rock meet at an angle of more than 120°.Climb the groove on rock then grass until you are level with a scary looking traverse back to the left....
- Climb the crack / grooves with continual interest until the top - at the top either continue vertically or traverse leftwards around the bulge.
- Continue up the groove / cracks finishing more easily up the right-facing corner.
2An established routine or habit: his thoughts were slipping into a familiar groove...
- Like any habit, once a groove is established, it is often difficult to change, and changing is even harder if it means you'll have to use less weight.
- His texts resist settling into established grooves of interpretation, and continue to engage new readers because this powerful, animated, and sometimes contradictory thinking lies so close to the surface.
- But that will - it will get me into the work groove.
Synonyms
rut, routine, boring routine, habit, dead end, humdrum existence, same old round, grind, daily grind, treadmill
3 informal A particular rhythm in popular or jazz music: her vocals drift delicately across a soaring soul groove...
- Consequently, the music and grooves are the same jazzy funk that this erstwhile folksinger has been exploring over her past few albums.
- Many of the pieces ride on spare, quietly insistent pulses that owe as much to dub or African grooves as to jazz.
- The dual vocals over heavy groove riffs and head-nodding rhythms are as fluid as ever.
verb
1 [with object] Make a groove or grooves in: deep lines grooved her face...
- Bare hills and mountains are grooved with swirling lines of erosion while an almost endless ribbon of palms meanders from one village to the next.
- Stainless steel kitchen sinks with deep washbowls and grooved draining boards, made washing up much easier after a meal.
- The three rooms were lined with sweet-smelling tongued and grooved cypress.
2 [no object] informal Dance to or play popular or jazz music: they were grooving to Motown...
- Just a bunch of college kids grooving to bad dance music, acting immature and possibly drinking underage.
- Although, I think a major part of it were the people, those who were pretending to be enjoying this violent scene, along with dancing and grooving to music with profane lyrics - violent in content towards women and others.
- This is a name that should be at the top of your shopping list, no matter what styles of music you're currently grooving to.
2.1 dated Play popular or jazz music in an accomplished manner: the rhythm section grooves in the true Basie manner...
- And true to its name, it grooves from start to finish.
- Clearly he enjoyed the opportunity to groove with young musicians, and judging by his gracious, charming attitude he was as happy as ever to let a crowd in on the fun.
- The rhythm section groove mightily; Parker can light a fire underneath pretty much any band and his solidity is typically elemental here.
2.2Enjoy oneself: Harley relaxed and began to groove...
- They even rented a couple of them out on a monthly basis, including one to a local New York University student, who grooved on living in a cabin on lower Broadway.
- The show has always grooved in the cerebral and quixotic, which often translates to slow.
- We saved them from themselves, and now we're all enjoying ourselves, having a ball and grooving on comic-book movies.
3 [with object] Baseball, informal Pitch (a ball) in the centre of the strike zone: he grooved a fastball in the 9th inning...
- I seem to recall that when he was stopped after hitting in 44 straight games, he said the opposing pitcher should have grooved him a fastball right down the heart of the strike zone so he could continue his streak.
- Fans who debate whether he grooved a home-run pitch to Cal Ripken in the All-Star Game are missing the true scandal.
- But until he relaxes in the batter's box and stops diving for pitches, opposing pitchers aren't going to groove any fastballs his way.
3.1North American (In the context of other sports) kick or throw (the ball) successfully; score (a goal) with stylish ease: the San Diego kicker grooved the winning field goal...
- He got seeing so good that he was grooving the ball right down the middle all the time.
- Harrington, who had been misfiring badly on his out patterns, finally grooved a tight one into his big receiver Roy Williams.
- At one point he grooves a serve that recalls the mop-haired pro from Tennessee.
Phrases
in (or into) the groove
Derivatives
groover
- So if you want to be sure to have fun the next time you go to Germany, ask a local where a good club is - being the groovers they are, they're bound to know.
- Young groovers were dancing up a storm to raise money for a children's charity.
- The pair used to be friends, back when they were the young groovers of our literary scene.
Origin
Middle English (denoting a mine or shaft): from Dutch groeve 'furrow, pit'; related to grave1.
In early use a groove was a mine, shaft, or pit. The word comes from Dutch groeve ‘furrow or pit’, and is related to grave (Old English). From the 17th century it was used to refer to a channel or furrow cut in something and, in the 20th century, a spiral track cut into a record into which the stylus fits. The latter sense lies behind the phrase in the groove, ‘performing consistently well or confidently’, which was first used of jazz musicians and dates back to the 1930s. This is also where we get the adjective groovy from, first recorded meaning ‘excellent’ in the 1930s, specifically in the context of playing jazz well. Groovy was a teenage slang term by the 1940s and became prominent in the 1960s. It was revived by Mike Myers in the Austin Powers film spoofs.