grope
/ɡrəʊp
/verb
1 [no object, with adverbial] Search blindly or uncertainly by feeling with the hands: she groped for her spectacles...
- The dentist returned to find me with my head between my knees, and one arm groping blindly for the stop button on the VCR.
- It was too early to kill him, so I blinked rather blearily instead, groping around blindly for my glasses, and noticed two pairs of feet standing nearby.
- She shook her head despite his grip, her hands groping blindly for her knives only to gather more cuts and bruises from the broken bottles lying on the floor.
Synonyms
fumble, scrabble, fish, ferret (about/around), rummage (about/around/round), root about/around, feel, cast about/around/round, search, hunt, look
British informal rootle around
rare grabble, roust around
1.1Move along uncertainly by feeling objects as one goes: she blew out the candle and groped her way to the door...
- I groped my way along the bottom of the boat and popped up into the rapids.
- He felt his way along the corridor, groping in the darkness for the door he knew would lead outside, facing the east gate.
- Should we not commemorate in some fashion a young man who worked here among our ancestors and who groped his way through the darkness of the unknown and lit a lamp along the path?
1.2 (grope for) Search uncertainly for (a word or answer) in one’s mind: she was groping for the words which would express what she thought...
- I watch, fascinated as I can see him searching, desperately searching, groping for the words.
- They were red and Katrina's mind groped for the word.
- It seems that many are groping for words that will cause people to pause and think again, not simply reject what is being said based on resistance to its form and style.
2 [with object] informal Fondle (someone) for sexual pleasure roughly or clumsily, or without the person’s consent: he was accused of groping office girls...
- Why should I just sit back and let those sluttish women flirt and grope him?
- A doctor accused of groping a woman patient during an eye examination yesterday admitted touching her breast.
- A shop assistant accused of groping a customer as he measured her for a ‘perfect pair of jeans’ has been cleared of molesting her.
Synonyms
fondle, touch;
molest, interfere with, assault, sexually assault, abuse, sexually abuse
informal paw, maul, feel up, touch up, goose
noun
An act of fondling someone for sexual pleasure: she and Steve sneaked off for a quick grope...
- And although he admired the breasts, he never dared instigate a quick grope of them.
- We stood at the public bar and demanded schooners, copping the jeers, sexual jibes and gropes of the regulars.
- David and I are often to be found by our friends having a quick grope, like a couple of teenagers.
Derivatives
gropingly
/ adverb ...- The more sombre, gropingly textured ritual of the Piano Trio is followed by an 86-second Piano Etude - the first of four solos by him for piano, violin and cello - that is like a fantasia on one note.
- Once in a cab, I saw in front of the Plaza at the pedestrian crossing, a blind man feeling his way across the road, gropingly with his stick.
- Through feeling in its emotional sense the body moves forward gropingly into the world.
Origin
Old English grāpian, of West Germanic origin; related to gripe.
Rhymes
- maternal effect
- maternal inheritance
- maternalise
- maternalism
- maternalist
- maternalistic
- maternality
- maternalize
- maternally
- maternalness
- maternise
- maternity
- maternity benefit
- maternity hospital
- maternity jacket
- maternity leave
- maternity unit
- maternity ward
- maternize
- maternofetal
- maternofoetal
- mateship
- mates' rates
- Mateus
- matey