▪ I. groping, vbl. n.
(ˈgrəʊpɪŋ)
[f. grope v. + -ing1. In OE. grápung.]
The action of the verb grope in its various senses; † in early use, touch, the sense of touch; in groping, to the touch (obs.).
| c 1000 ælfric Hom. I. 234 Forðan ðurh his [sc. St. Thomas's] grapunge we sind ᵹeleaffulle. a 1225 Ancr. R. 206 Mid luue speche, cos, unhende gropunges. Ibid. 314 Unneaðe, þauh a last, þuruh þen abbodes gropunge, he hit seide. c 1380 Wyclif Serm. Sel. Wks. I. 249 Þese [fyve] wittis ben clepid siȝte, and heering, smelling and taist, wiþ groping. 1398 Trevisa Barth. De P.R. iii. xxi. (1495) 69 The wytte of gropynge. Ibid. xvii. lii. (Tollem. MS.), Ebenus..is playne and smoþe in gropynge. c 1440 Jacob's Well 219 Wyht mowth in kyssyng, wyth hand in gropyng. c 1560 A. Scott Poems (S.T.S.) iv. 52 Thair followis thingis thre To gar thame ga in gucking, Brasing, graping, and plucking. 1594 T. B. La Primaud. Fr. Acad. ii. 549 Euery Spirit always searcheth after God as a blind man goeth by groaping. 1791 Burke App. Whigs 84 They lost their way by groping about in the dark, and fumbling among rotten parchments and musty records. 1830 D'Israeli Chas. I, III. vii. 119 Feeling our way..in these cautious gropings after truth. 1847 Halliwell, Groping, (1) A mode of ascertaining whether geese or fowls have eggs. Var. dial. (2) A mode of catching trout by tickling them with the hands under rocks or banks. 1855 Lynch Rivulet xl. i, Is life a groping and a guess, A vain cry in a wilderness? 1888 Athenæum 1 Dec. 739/1 The tentative mathematical gropings of the Egyptians and Phœnicians. |
▪ II. groping, ppl. a.
(ˈgrəʊpɪŋ)
[f. grope v. + -ing2.]
That gropes, in senses of the vb.
| 13.. E.E. Allit. P. B. 591 He is þe gropande god. 1599 Marston Sco. Villanie i. iii. 184 Shall Curio streake his lims on his daies couch, In Sommer bower? and with bare groping touch Incense his lust? 1691 Hartcliffe Virtues 309 The groping World had so bewildred it self in an endless Maze of Errour. 1714 Gay Trivia ii. 51 The groaping Blind direct. 1861 Tulloch Eng. Purit. i. 75 Amidst its wild and groping earnestness, it sheds a vivid light upon the inward man. |
| absol. 1850 Mrs. Browning Poems II. 168 Or, that a hundred of the groping Like himself had made one Homer. |