groveled

verb

variants or grovelled
past tense of grovel
1
as in cringed
to draw back or crouch down in fearful submission the way in which the abused dog would grovel whenever its owner came near

Synonyms & Similar Words

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2
as in crawled
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 groveled
  1. cringed
  2. crawled
  3. flinched
  4. crept
  5. cowered
  6. slid
  7. snaked
  8. slithered
Verb
  • When the outfits hit social media Sunday morning, many Titans fans cringed.
    — Armando Salguero OutKick, FOXNews.com, 20 Sep. 2026
  • Mingione cringed when asked if any of his players had gotten hurt by a hit by pitch.
    — Mitch Light, New York Times, 22 May 2026
Definition of cringed
Verb
  • In May 2025, after Williams shut off the water in a cell, 10 inmates removed a toilet, crawled through a gap in the wall and scaled a fence out of the jail.
    — ABC News, ABC News, 15 Oct. 2026
  • In real-world tests, the hand crawled across 14 different surfaces including smooth floors, metal grates, grass, and gravel.
    — Edd Gent, IEEE Spectrum, 8 Oct. 2026
Definition of crawled
Verb
  • The teen in the green sweatshirt, Williams, momentarily flinched from the gunshot.
    — Meredith Colias-Pete, Chicago Tribune, 15 Aug. 2026
  • Sipp slightly flinched his left arm before throwing a pitch to Emmanuel Burriss, allowing Miguel Tejada to score and sending San Francisco to its fourth straight win.
    — Assistant Sports Editor, Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2026
Definition of flinched
Verb
  • Europe has crept back on the scene in a real negative way, this time with France on the hot seat.
    — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 12 Oct. 2026
  • The aberrant digit only crept in because Ford owned the rights to Model E and wasn’t interested in selling.
    — Jason Barlow, Robb Report, 11 Oct. 2026
Definition of crept
Verb
  • Not the kind who cowered from viruses and obsessed over death.
    — Literary Hub, Literary Hub, 6 Aug. 2026
  • The other customers cowered in the corners, while crowds formed at the windows outside, shrieking and recording the scene on their phones.
    — Robert F. Worth, The Atlantic, 10 July 2026
Definition of cowered
Verb
  • The Dallas Cowboys tight end slid into the former college athlete and influencer's DMs with a line that ended up working and anyone can use.
    — Sean Joseph OutKick, FOXNews.com, 15 Oct. 2026
  • Artificial Intelligence infrastructure plays Nebius Group and Iren also slid 5% and nearly 8%, respectively.
    — Ananya Chetia,Darla Mercado, CFP®, CNBC, 15 Oct. 2026
Definition of slid
Verb
  • At Yohji Yamamoto, a long strand of eyelashes cascaded down from a model’s lower eyelid and snaked against her face.
    — Jennifer Weil, Footwear News, 13 Oct. 2026
  • Demands for the exclusive event pins exceeded common sense and ventured into the absurd with haphazard lines that snaked through the convention center.
    — Gieson Cacho, Mercury News, 31 Aug. 2026
Definition of snaked
Verb
  • Saint Laurent‘s shining gold shoes slithered down the spring 2027 runway on Tuesday to become the talk of Paris Fashion Week, with sculptural snake heels among the collection’s standout footwear.
    — Jaden Thompson, Footwear News, 30 Sep. 2026
  • The snake, later identified as an approximately eight-foot-long Burmese python, had slithered beneath the floor of a wooden shed.
    — Charlotte Phillipp, PEOPLE, 7 Aug. 2026
Definition of slithered
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.

Browse Nearby Words

grovel
groveled
groveler
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Cite this Entry

“Groveled.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/groveled. Accessed 20 Oct. 2026.

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