Word.ws English Dictionary

grovel

/ˈɡrɒvəl/

grovel verb: to be prone on the ground.

Verb

grovel (third-person singular simple present grovels, present participle (US) groveling or (UK) grovelling, simple past and past participle (US) groveled or (UK) grovelled)

  1. (intransitive) To be prone on the ground.
  2. (intransitive) To crawl.
    • In the tube station, the old ones who were on the way out / Would dribble and vomit and grovel and shout1985, Shane MacGowan, “The Old Main Drag”, in Rum Sodomy & the Lash, performed by The Pogues
  3. (intransitive) To abase oneself before another person.
    • She refused to grovel in front of the bully, standing her ground.
  4. (intransitive) To be slavishly nice to someone or apologize in the hope of securing something.
    • He had to grovel before his boss after missing the important meeting.
    • He hated to grovel, but he knew it was the only way to save his job.
  5. (intransitive) To take pleasure in mundane activities.

grovel meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam

grovel in Hindi

to grovel, beg, entreat, implore
गिड़गिड़ाना giṛgiṛānā

grovel in Tamil

அடிவருடி

grovel in Urdu

زمین پر لیٹنا, ذلت اختیار کرنا

grovel in Malayalam

ഇഴയുക, നിലത്തിഴയുക, ഭീതികൊണ്ടു പതുങ്ങുക, താണുപെരുമാറുക
More languagesFewer languages
grovel in Kannada
ಅಡ್ಡಬೀಳು, ಅಡಿಯಾಳಾಗು, ಅಂಗಲಾಚು, ಅತಿದೈನ್ಯ ತೋರು

Examples of grovel in a sentence

  • She's always either chiseling or groveling, it seems.
  • Just like Hollywood continues to grovel for its share of the expanding Chinese box office.
  • Without Cerberus, humanity was doomed to an existence of groveling subservience at the feet of alien masters.

All 15 example sentences with grovel

Forms of grovel

third-person singular presentgrovels
present participle USgroveling
present participle UKgrovelling
past participle USgroveled
past USgroveled
past participle UKgrovelled
past UKgrovelled

Past tense of grovel: groveled or grovelled

Origin of grovel

From Middle English *grovelen, from Old Norse grufla, grœfla (“to grovel”), from Proto-Germanic *grubilōną (“to dig, delve into”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ‑ (“to dig, scrape, scrabble, scratch”); akin to Old Norse á grufu (“on one's belly”) ( > Old Norse grúfa (“to lie face down, grovel”)). Cognate with Scots grovel, gruvil (“to grovel”), German grübeln (“to meditate, ponder”), Norwegian Nynorsk gruvla (“to grovel”). Compare also West Frisian groebeltsje (“to make a mess, skip school, skive”), Dutch grobbelen (“to grope, root, grub”).

Words formed from grovel

Words that rhyme with grovel

Questions about grovel

What does grovel mean?
Grovel means to be prone on the ground.
What is grovel in Hindi?
Grovel in Hindi is गिड़गिड़ाना (giṛgiṛānā). See Grovel meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is grovel?
Grovel is a verb.
How do you pronounce grovel?
Grovel is pronounced /ˈɡrɒvəl/.
What is the past tense of grovel?
The past tense of grovel is groveled.

Words near grovel in the dictionary

  1. Grove Park
  2. grove snail
  3. grove snails
  4. groved
  5. Grovedale
  6. grovel
  7. Groveland
  8. groveled
  9. groveler
  10. grovelers
  11. groveless

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: grovel (page history and authors); गिड़गिड़ाना (Hindi) (page history and authors); grovel (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grovel (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grovel (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); grovel (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-grovel.ogg.

Cite this entry: “grovel.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grovel. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.