Gripeth vs Gropeth - What's the difference?

gripeth | gropeth |

In archaic terms the difference between gripeth and gropeth

is that gripeth is third-person singular of gripe while gropeth is third-person singular of grope.

gripeth

English

Verb

(head)

(archaic) (gripe)

* 1922 , (James Joyce), Episode 14

Therefore, everyman, look to that last end that is thy death and the dust that gripeth on every man that is born of woman for as he came naked forth from his mother's womb so naked shall he wend him at the last for to go as he came.

gropeth

English

Verb

(head)

(archaic) (grope)

grope

English

Verb

(lb) To feel with or use the hands; to handle.

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.

*(Joseph Stevens Buckminster) (1751-1812)

*:to grope a little longer among the miseries and sensualities of a worldly life

*1898 , , (Moonfleet), Ch.4:

*: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.

*: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.

To touch (another person) closely and (especially) sexually.

(lb) To examine; to test; to sound.

:(Chaucer)

*Genevan Testament ((w) xxiv)

*:''Felix gropeth him, thinking to have a bribe.

Noun

(en noun)

(informal) An act of groping, especially sexually.

(obsolete) an iron fitting of a medieval cart wheel

* 1866 , James Edwin Thorold Rogers, A History of Agriculture and Prices in England , Volume 1, p. 544.

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.