grovel : Dictionary / Wörterbuch (BEOLINGUS, TU Chemnitz)

English Dictionary: grovel	by the DICT Development Group
4 results for grovel
From WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006) [wn]:
grovel v show submission or fear [syn: fawn, crawl, creep, cringe, cower, grovel]
From Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913]:
Grovel \Grov"el\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Groveled}or {Grovelled}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Groveling} or {Grovelling}.] [From OE. grovelinge, grufelinge, adv., on the face, prone, which was misunderstood as a p. pr.; cf. OE. gruf, groff, in the same sense; of Scand. origin, cf. Icel. gr[umac]fa, in [amac] gr[umac]fu on the face, prone, gr[umac]fa to grovel.] 1. To creep on the earth, or with the face to the ground; to lie prone, or move uneasily with the body prostrate on the earth; to lie fiat on one's belly, expressive of abjectness; to crawl. To creep and grovel on the ground. --Dryden. 2. To tend toward, or delight in, what is sensual or base; to be low, abject, or mean.
From Jargon File (4.2.0, 31 JAN 2000) [jargon]:
grovel vi. 1. To work interminably and without apparent progress. Often used transitively with `over' or `through'. "The file scavenger has been groveling through the /usr directories for 10 minutes now." Compare {grind} and {crunch}. Emphatic form: `grovel obscenely'. 2. To examine minutely or in complete detail. "The compiler grovels over the entire source program before beginning to translate it." "I grovelled through all the documentation, but I still couldn't find the command I wanted."
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (15Feb98) [foldoc]:
grovel 1. To work interminably and without apparent progress. Often used transitively with "over" or "through". "The file scavenger has been groveling through the /usr directories for 10 minutes now." Compare {grind} and {crunch}. Emphatic form: "grovel obscenely". 2. To examine minutely or in complete detail. "The compiler grovels over the entire source program before beginning to translate it." "I grovelled through all the documentation, but I still couldn't find the command I wanted." [{Jargon File}]