Definition of "grope"

grope

/ɡɹəʊp/

verb
third-person singular simple present gropes, present participle groping, simple past and past participle groped
1. (obsolete) To feel with or use the hands; to handle.
2. To search or attempt to find something in the dark, or, as a blind person, by feeling; to move about hesitatingly, as in darkness or obscurity; to feel one's way, as with the hands, when one can not see.
  Quotations
  to grope about a little longer among the miseries and sensualities of a worldly life
  a. 1812. Joseph Stevens Buckminster, sermon
  In the hollow shades of the roof could be seen pale dangling arms of ivy which had crept through the joints of the tiles and were groping in vain for some support, their leaves being dwarfed and sickly for want of sunlight; [...]
  1886 May – 1887 April, Thomas Hardy, chapter IV, in The Woodlanders […], volume I, London, New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 1887, page 56
  Yet there was no time to be lost if I was ever to get out alive, and so I groped with my hands against the side of the grave until I made out the bottom edge of the slab, and then fell to grubbing beneath it with my fingers. But the earth, which the day before had looked light and loamy to the eye, was stiff and hard enough when one came to tackle it with naked hands, and in an hour's time I had done little more than further weary myself and bruise my fingers.
  1898, J. Meade Falkner, chapter 4, in Moonfleet, London, Toronto, Ont.: Jonathan Cape, published 1934
  Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
  1914, Louis Joseph Vance, chapter III, in Nobody, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 1915
  Through the darkest sky, groping for the light / Like crying for the moon / Never-ending black, forgot what I want / Never felt that hard to me
  2021, “The Roar of the Spark”, in Naoki Hashimoto (lyrics), Daisuke Ishiwatari (music), Necessary Discrepancy‎
3. To touch (another person) closely and (especially) sexually.
4. To intentionally and inappropriately touch or rub against another person, in such a manner as to make the contact appear accidental, for the purpose of one's sexual gratification.
5. (obsolete) To examine; to test; to sound.
  Quotations
  Felix gropeth him, thinking to have a bribe.
  1557, Geneva Bible (Acts xxiv)
noun
plural gropes
1. (informal) An act of groping, especially sexually.
2. (obsolete) An iron fitting of a medieval cart wheel.
  Quotations
  Gropes appear to be pieces of iron binding together the inner joint of the fitting, and grope-nails to have been used for fastening these to the wood.
  1866, James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, volume 1, page 544