bow and scrape

present singular third person bows and scrapes · participle present bowing and scraping · participle past bowed and scraped · past bowed and scraped · alternative scrape and bow

1. To make a deep bow with the right leg drawn back (thus scraping the floor), left hand pressed across the abdomen, right arm held aside.

   Synonyms: make a leg

2. broadlyidiomaticTo behave in a servile, obsequious, or excessively polite manner.

   But he is not one of those lawyers who bow and scrape before wealthy clients. He will not be pushed around.

   1988 March 27, Newgate Callendar, "Crime" (book review of The Vulgar Boatman by William G. Tapply), New York Times (retrieved 25 Nov 2012)

   Synonyms: brown-nose, fawn, suck up, apple-polish, bootlick, brown-nose, butter up, dickride

plural bows and scrapes · alternative scrape and bow

1. A deep formal bow with right leg drawn back touching the ground.

   [H]e took off his Highland bonnet, and performed a bow and scrape.

   1851 April 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, →OCLC