All 3 Uses of
grovel
in
The Scarlet Letter
- It grovelled helpless on the ground, even while his intellectual faculties retained their pristine strength, or had perhaps acquired a morbid energy, which disease only could have given them.†
p. 107.1 *grovelled = showed submission or fearunconventional spelling: This is a British spelling. Americans use groveled.
- His spirit rose, as it were, with a bound, and attained a nearer prospect of the sky, than throughout all the misery which had kept him grovelling on the earth.†
p. 136.7grovelling = showing submission or fearunconventional spelling: This is a British spelling. Americans use groveling.
- —I stand upon the spot where, seven years since, I should have stood, here, with this woman, whose arm, more than the little strength wherewith I have crept hitherward, sustains me at this dreadful moment, from grovelling down upon my face!†
p. 169.4
Definition:
to show submission or fear -- sometimes by crawling or lying face down