grovelling
grovelling is the present participle and gerund of grovel.
Meaning of grovel
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)
- To be prone on the ground.
- 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
- To abase oneself before another person.
- She refused to grovel in front of the bully, standing her ground.
- 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.
- To take pleasure in mundane activities.
Noun
grovelling (plural grovellings)
- The act of one who grovels.
Forms of grovelling
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| alternative form | groveling |
| Noun | |
| plural | grovellings |
Questions about grovelling
- What does grovelling mean?
- Grovelling means the act of one who grovels.
- What is grovelling the present participle and gerund of?
- Grovelling is the present participle and gerund of grovel.
- What part of speech is grovelling?
- Grovelling is a noun.
- What is the plural of grovelling?
- The plural of grovelling is grovellings.
Words near grovelling in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: grovelling (page history and authors); grovel (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.
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Cite this entry: “grovelling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/grovelling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.