grovels

present tense third-person singular of grovel
1
as in cringes
to draw back or crouch down in fearful submission the way in which the abused dog would grovel whenever its owner came near

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2
as in crawls
to move slowly with the body close to the ground because of their anatomy, bats can only grovel while moving along the ground

Synonyms & Similar Words

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for grovels
Verb
  • Payton cringes at the mention of a sophomore slump, that defenses will figure out Nix.
    Troy Renck, Denver Post, 6 Aug. 2025
Verb
  • Chalamet crawls out of the weird-for-the-sake-of-being-weird chamber and chucks the helmet to the ground, displaying his now shaven head.
    Marci Robin, Allure, 8 Oct. 2025
  • Arisu crawls onto a mound of rubble for momentary relief, and is met with an angry Banda.
    Kayti Burt, Time, 26 Sep. 2025
Verb
  • Bingo momentarily flinches, and Atlas rolls onto his back in response.
    Lydia Patrick, MSNBC Newsweek, 22 Aug. 2025
  • Months later, Anderson, 50, still avoids crowds, doesn’t go out after dark and flinches when the doorbell rings.
    USA Today, USA Today, 7 Aug. 2025
Verb
  • The Japanese influence creeps in again with a matcha white chocolate chip cookie.
    Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 22 Sep. 2025
  • Employees notice the waves of shiny experiments that come and go (with no momentum), and cynicism creeps in.
    Aditya Vikram Kashyap, Forbes.com, 18 Sep. 2025
Verb
  • The Guthrie family cowers in obedient fear of its brooding patriarch (Peter Mullan).
    Samantha Bergeson, IndieWire, 5 Aug. 2025
Verb
  • The district snakes through southeast Texas from the border near Hidalgo − through Pulido's native Edinburg − and northward up around Corpus Christi, where the Tejano singer Selena has her roots.
    Eduardo Cuevas, USA Today, 17 Sep. 2025
  • The Wild Flint The Flint snakes down Georgia, a safe distance from I-85 and I-75, before joining the Chattahoochee River in Lake Seminole and cutting across the Florida Panhandle as the Apalachicola River.
    David Hanson, Southern Living, 13 Sep. 2025
Verb
  • Larry Tentarelli, founder of the Blue Chip Daily Trend Report, said 2%-3% slides from fresh highs are fairly common.
    Alex Harring, CNBC, 10 Oct. 2025
  • Down ⬇ Kathryn Bigelow Meanwhile, with the Venice heat for A House of Dynamite rapidly cooling in the New York City autumn, Bigelow slides out of the realm of director predictions.
    Joe Reid, Vulture, 4 Oct. 2025
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Cite this Entry

“Grovels.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/grovels. Accessed 13 Oct. 2025.

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