grope

present singular third person gropes · participle present groping · participle past groped · past groped

1. obsoleteTo feel with or use the hands; to handle.

   Synonyms: touch

2. To search or attempt to find something in the dark, or, as a blind person, by feeling; to move about hesitatingly, as in darkness or obscurity; to feel one's way, as with the hands, when one can not see.

   a. 1812. Joseph Stevens Buckminster, sermon to grope about a little longer among the miseries and sensualities of a worldly life

   4 more examples

   In the hollow shades of the roof could be seen pale dangling arms of ivy which had crept through the joints of the tiles and were groping in vain for some support, their leaves being dwarfed and sickly for want of sunlight; [...]

   1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter IV, in The Woodlanders […], volume I, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 56

   Yet there was no time to be lost if I was ever to get out alive, and so I groped with my hands against the side of the grave until I made out the bottom edge of the slab, and then fell to grubbing beneath it with my fingers. But the earth, which the day before had looked light and loamy to the eye, was stiff and hard enough when one came to tackle it with naked hands, and in an hour's time I had done little more than further weary myself and bruise my fingers.

   [1898], J[ohn] Meade Falkner, Moonfleet, London; Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934, →OCLC

   Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

   1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III (Accessory After the Fact), page 382, column 1

   Through the darkest sky, groping for the light / Like crying for the moon / Never-ending black, forgot what I want / Never felt that hard to me

   2021, “The Roar of the Spark”, in Naoki Hashimoto (lyrics), Daisuke Ishiwatari (music), Necessary Discrepancy

   Synonyms: fumble

3. To touch (another person) closely and (especially) sexually.

   The parents found the couple kissing and groping.

   Synonyms: caress

4. To intentionally and inappropriately touch or rub against another person, in such a manner as to make the contact appear accidental, for the purpose of one's sexual gratification.

   That old man groped that girl on the train!

5. obsoleteTo examine; to test; to sound.

   Felix gropeth him, thinking to have a bribe.

   1557, Geneva Bible (Acts xxiv)

plural gropes

1. informalAn act of groping, especially sexually.

   The old man tried to get a quick grope of the young lady on the train.

2. obsoleteAn iron fitting of a medieval cart wheel.

   Gropes appear to be pieces of iron binding together the inner joint of the fitting, and grope-nails to have been used for fastening these to the wood.

   1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, page 544