Whatever happened to the groveling apology and the second chance . . . the kind of forgiving spirit that made America great?
A mortified Phillips, from Belfast, wrote a groveling apology in response.
A consummate Wall Street creature, the pathetic, groveling Paulson knew what would happen without a bailout.
The sort of groveling one imagines taking place is repulsive to consider.
He grabbed the groveling butcher and hoisted him from his wallow.
How groveling must be the ignorance which can be thus blinded!
They had not the low and groveling spirit which usually incites mobs.
If in that moment she appeared a groveling thing, it was only for a moment.
At every step she had to purchase silence by groveling humility.
Gasping, dying a thousand deaths, he lay there groveling in the dust.
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.
