grope

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English gropen, also grapen,^[2][3] inherited from Old English grāpian (“to feel, touch, seize”),^[4][5][6][7] from Proto-Germanic *graipōną,^[8] which the OED writes *graipôjan.^[6] Kroonen takes it as an o-grade variant of a Germanic iterative verb,^[8] and the OED derives it through the noun grāp (“a grasp”) from a variant of the base that gave grip.^[6] It is thus related to grīpan (“to seize”), the source of gripe,^[5][9][10] and Weekley adds grasp.^[11] Compare Old High German greifōn,^[6][12][8] Old Norse greipa (“to grasp”)^[8] and Norwegian greipa.^[13] Köbler refers the group to Proto-Indo-European *gʰreib- (“to seize”).^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

To handle, touch or feel with the hands, and to reach for or seize: Barnhart dates grāpian to about 725, in Beowulf,^[3] and the OED's first quotation is from the Vespasian Psalter.^[6] Other dictionaries date it to before 900,^[15] or to late Old English.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Trench noted that where it now means feeling uncertainly for something, as a blind man does, it once meant just to feel or grasp, as in Wycliffe's "han hondis, and schulen not grope", rendering Latin palpabunt.^[16] The plain sense died out by the 18th century.^[6] The narrower "feel about in the dark" is already Old English, in the Blickling Homilies.^[6] It led to figurative searching (about 1386, in Chaucer's Canon's Yeoman's Tale, though Etymonline has the early 14th century) and to the phrase grope one's way (1574).^[6][9] Johnson (1755) defined it as "to feel where one cannot see".^[17] The sexual sense is old too: the Middle English Dictionary records "touch amorously", the OED finds it in The Owl and the Nightingale (about 1275), and Etymonline puts it at about 1200.^[2][6][9] Etymonline remarks that the 1989 OED marked it obsolete,^[9] but the current OED has it running to the present, with the modern note of lack of consent.^[6] Green's Dictionary quotes it from Piers Plowman on.^[18] Middle English also had gropen hondes, to bribe,^[2] and Scots and northern English dialects kept "feel, search" in forms like graip and greap, as well as "grasp greedily" in north Yorkshire.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 725 – Old English, to feel, handle or grasp.^[3]
• c. 1275 – to fondle sexually.^[6] Etymonline dates this to about 1200.^[9]
• c. 1386 – figurative, to search blindly or uncertainly.^[6]
• 1425 – the compound grope-nail, a kind of nail (recorded to 1720).^[6]
• before 1513 – noun, the act of groping.^[6] Etymonline has about 1500.^[9]
• 1574 – to grope one's way.^[6]
• 1590 – to handle poultry to find whether they have eggs (recorded to 1611).^[6]
• before 1616 – to catch fish, especially trout, by feeling for them in the water.^[6]
• 1772 – noun, an act of sexual fondling, in Bridges's burlesque Homer.^[6][18]
• 1950 – Australian to go the grope.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To feel about uncertainly with the hands in search of something: He groped along the cellar wall for the fuse box.^[13][10][6]
2. To search uncertainly or with difficulty for an idea or answer: She groped for a polite reply.^[13][10][6]
3. To find one's way by feeling about, or to proceed tentatively: We groped our way down the unlit stairs.^[13][6]
4. (slang) To touch or fondle someone clumsily or forcefully in a sexual way, usually without consent.^{[13][6][12][18]}
5. To try to catch fish by feeling for them in the water.^[6][12]
6. (obsolete, Old English–1738) To touch, handle or examine with the hands; to grasp.^[6][16][12]

Noun

1. The act of groping.^[10][13][6]
2. (slang) An act of sexual fondling.^[6][18]

Word family

• groper
• gropingly

Related words

• gripe
• grip
• grasp

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
5. ^ a b Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Holthausen, Ferdinand (1934), Altenglisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg: Carl Winter
8. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
11. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
12. ^ a b c d Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d e f Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
14. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
15. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
16. ^ a b Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
18. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
19. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)