Other forms: groping, groped, gropes
To grope is to feel about blindly with the hands. Grope for the switch, groping in the dark, grope your way.
The blindness is the point: groping is searching by touch because you cannot see. Figuratively it means searching without direction — grope for words, groping towards an answer. The word also means to touch somebody sexually without consent, which is a serious matter and the sense that dominates in reporting. Note that grope and grip come from the same root.
1verbgropeTo feel about blindly with the hands.
“In the dark, he groped along the wall for the light switch.”
2verbsearchTo search without direction.
“The government is still groping for a solution to the housing crisis.”
grope is a feeling about.
Old English grapian is related to gripan, to seize. Grip, gripe and grasp come from the same holding.
Old English
grāpian
Middle English
gropien
English, today
grope
From Middle English gropien, from Old English grāpian, related to grīpan (whence English gripe); compare also grip.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire