Verb

(head)

(grope)

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.

Verb

(head)

(fumble)

Verb

(fumbl)

(intransitive) To idly touch or nervously handle

Waiting for the interview, he fumbled with his tie.

He fumbled the key into the lock.

* {{quote-news

, year=2010 , date=December 28 , author=Owen Phillips , title=Sunderland 0 - 2 Blackpool , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Henderson's best strike on goal saw goalkeeper Kingson uncomfortably fumble his measured shot around the post.}}

(intransitive) To grope awkwardly in trying to find something

He fumbled for his keys.

He fumbled his way to the light-switch.

* Fielding

Adams now began to fumble in his pockets.

To blunder uncertainly.

He fumbled through his prepared speech.

To grope about in perplexity; to seek awkwardly.

to fumble for an excuse

* Chesterfield

My understanding flutters and my memory fumbles .

* Wordsworth

Alas! how he fumbles about the domains.

(transitive, intransitive, sports) To drop a ball or a baton etc.

To handle much; to play childishly; to turn over and over.

* Shakespeare

I saw him fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers.