How to Use grovel in a Sentence

grovel

verb
  • The peasants groveled before the king.
  • He had to grovel to get her to accept his apology.
  • He made a groveling apology to his girlfriend.
  • Cue the fine and the groveling league apology.
    — Matt Reigle Outkick, FOXNews.com, 10 May 2026
  • At which point, according to her friends, Brenner would grovel and beg her to keep him.
    — Lisa Depaulo, Vulture, 30 Apr. 2024
  • And after all of this, Emily Gilmore is still groveling for time with her.
    — Diana Bruk, Country Living, 5 Dec. 2016
  • And for some teams expected to contend, perhaps there’s no need to grovel for their fans’ attention.
    — Paul Sullivan, chicagotribune.com, 31 Mar. 2022
  • Spending months in dark damp tunnels, bodies chained to walls, humans forced to grovel like animals.
    — Greg Palkot, Fox News, 15 Feb. 2025
  • Aren’t the most interesting people the ones who can’t make up their minds about their world, who sometimes sneer and sometimes grovel?
    — Jackson Arn, The New Yorker, 21 Nov. 2024
  • Employees have traditionally been the ones who have to grovel to get—and sometimes, to keep—a job.
    — Justin Brady, Quartz at Work, 24 Sep. 2019
  • After the fallout of episode 7, plenty of dudes should be grovelling for forgiveness right now.
    — Alexandra Koster, refinery29.com, 7 Feb. 2024
  • This, at the very least, offered Noem the chance to show proof of life, as well as to grovel her way back into the president’s good graces.
    — Mark Leibovich, The Atlantic, 31 Jan. 2026
  • Trump’s behavior in office has borne out all these assessments, yet their authors now grovel before him.
    — Jonathan Chait, Daily Intelligencer, 27 June 2018
  • Right-wing politicians like Ted Cruz groveled before him, seeking his blessing so that the base didn’t turn on them.
    — Bill Goodykoontz, The Arizona Republic, 25 Apr. 2023
  • Black people are only fit to live underground like groveling goblins.
    — Ryan Gaydos, Fox News, 6 Aug. 2018
  • That’s the saddest cash-grab gimmick ever, groveling for Dubai dollars.
    — Sports Columnist, San Francisco Chronicle, 11 Jan. 2026
  • There was nothing in it to offend the president, who was referenced three times, enough to flatter but not so often as to seem to grovel.
    — Eliot A. Cohen, The Atlantic, 17 Feb. 2026
  • So funny to watch Steve Kerr grovel and pander when asked a simple question about China.
    — Connor Letourneau, SFChronicle.com, 12 Oct. 2019
  • Jim Jordan called me crying, groveling, begging me to go against my brother, begging me, crying for a half-hour.
    — Savannah Behrmann, USA TODAY, 12 Feb. 2020
  • Abject, groveling apologies to Moss and everybody on the longevity team!
    — Guy Martin, Forbes.com, 25 June 2026
  • One moment involves Dickinson smashing up china and making Romy grovel on the floor to pick up the pieces.
    — Ryan Lattanzio, IndieWire, 28 Dec. 2024
  • Some African feminists argue that to wear a long, straight-haired wig or hair extension is to grovel to Western ideals of beauty.
    — The Economist, 15 Aug. 2020
  • But then, to render Americans speechless is not the same as rendering them helpless, or hopeless, or silent, or grovelling.
    — Jeffrey Frank, The New Yorker, 31 Jan. 2017
  • Hardly a surprise we are treated like Panama or El Salvador when government grovels for favours.
    — Margaret Hartmann, Daily Intelligencer, 13 July 2018
  • And the United States is going cap-in-hand to Saudi Arabia to grovel for more oil production.
    — Bjorn Lomborg, Forbes, 10 Nov. 2022
  • Add it all up and Iowa's days as a trendsetting state where dozens of would-be presidents must grovel before the gods of ethanol and direct democracy are probably over.
    — David Faris, TheWeek, 7 Feb. 2020
  • But luxury brands—whose largest single market is often China—offered grovelling apologies.
    — The Economist, 22 Aug. 2019
  • At least three journalists said Slutsky tried to kiss them, touch them inappropriately or openly grovelled for their affections.
    — Damien Sharkov, Newsweek, 21 Mar. 2018
  • Park City–Salt Lake City remains the funniest option, after months of groveling from other cities.
    — Jason P. Frank, Vulture, 12 Sep. 2024
  • Actress Fan Bingbing only re-emerged from months of house arrest after making a groveling public apology.
    — Yaqiu Wang, Twin Cities, 3 Oct. 2019

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'grovel.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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