A consummate Wall Street creature, the pathetic, groveling Paulson knew what would happen without a bailout.
A mortified Phillips, from Belfast, wrote a groveling apology in response.
Whatever happened to the groveling apology and the second chance . . . the kind of forgiving spirit that made America great?
The sort of groveling one imagines taking place is repulsive to consider.
It is too abjectly selfish and groveling to command the least respect from a noble character or a great, tender soul.
If in that moment she appeared a groveling thing, it was only for a moment.
"Too late—too late," he moaned, groveling weakly, as if struggling for breath.
Gasping, dying a thousand deaths, he lay there groveling in the dust.
The idea of me—Wellington Bunn—who has played in Shakespearean dramas, groveling on the floor and turning somersaults!
On the other side he is tied by this body of clay to the groveling earth.
1590s, Shakespearian back-formation of groveling (Middle English), regarded as a present participle but really an adverb, from Old Norse grufe "prone" + obsolete adverbial suffix -ling (which survives also as the -long in headlong, sidelong); first element from Old Norse a grufu "on proneness." Perhaps related to creep. Related: Groveled; grovelled; groveling; grovelling.
