Cringe vs Grovel - What's the difference?
cringe | grovel | Synonyms |
A posture or gesture of shrinking or recoiling.
(dialect) A crick.
(dated) To bow or crouch in servility.
* Milton
* 1903 , ,
* 1904 , ,
To shrink, tense or recoil, as in fear, disgust or embarrassment.
* Bunyan
* 1917 , ,
(obsolete) To contract; to draw together; to cause to shrink or wrinkle; to distort.
* Shakespeare
To be prone on the ground.
To crawl
To abase oneself before another person.
To be nice to someone or apologize in the hope of securing something.
To take pleasure in mundane activities.
Cringe is a synonym of grovel.
As verbs the difference between cringe and grovel
is that cringe is (dated|intransitive) to bow or crouch in servility while grovel is to be prone on the ground.As a noun cringe
is a posture or gesture of shrinking or recoiling.cringe
English
Alternative forms
* (dialectal)Noun
(en noun)- He glanced with a cringe at the mess on his desk.
Verb
- Sly hypocrite, who more than thou / Once fawned and cringed , and servilely adored / Heaven's awful monarch?
- He heard the hateful clank of their chains; he felt them cringe and grovel, and there rose within him a protest and a prophecy.
- Leclere was bent on the coming of the day when Batard should wilt in spirit and cringe and whimper at his feet.
- He cringed as the bird collided with the window.
- When they were come up to the place where the lions were, the boys that went before were glad to cringe behind, for they were afraid of the lions.
- But he made no whimper. Nor did he wince or cringe to the blows. He bored straight in, striving, without avoiding a blow, to beat and meet the blow with his teeth.
- Till like a boy you see him cringe his face, / And whine aloud for mercy.