What's the difference between abject and groveling?

Abject


Definition:

  • (a.) Cast down; low-lying.
  • (a.) Sunk to a law condition; down in spirit or hope; degraded; servile; groveling; despicable; as, abject posture, fortune, thoughts.
  • (a.) To cast off or down; hence, to abase; to degrade; to lower; to debase.
  • (n.) A person in the lowest and most despicable condition; a castaway.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He is an expert on the public health problems that plague El Paso and the other cities along the international border, all of which are exacerbated by abject poverty and a burgeoning population.
  • (2) During his long stint in the witness stand, Harris was questioned at length about why he expressed abject remorse to the father for his actions, offering a little more credible explanation than he felt ending the relationship had upset the woman.
  • (3) And while Altmejd presents sexual scenes of cartoonish horror and disgust, Lucas's art has embraced lavatorial humour, abjection, self-denigration, the pithy sculptural one-liner and the obscene gesture.
  • (4) An Israeli commentator said of the first of them: "when one looks through all the lofty phraseology, all the deliberate disinformation, the hundreds of pettifogging sections, sub-sections, appendices and protocols, one clearly recognises that the Israeli victory was absolute and Palestine defeat abject."
  • (5) It is an abject failure to take the rights of females seriously.
  • (6) Obviously Pantilimon is more abject than Hart,” says Graham Lees “and Demichelis must have lied on his CV but why does no one bemoan the wretchedness, sorry, opportunity gifted to Sunderland, of Nasri’s selection?
  • (7) Indeed, we have been reminded recently of the abject poverty that many have fallen into, needing to use food banks or choose between "eating and heating" and the need for charitable institutions to step forward and help the needy.
  • (8) Now, millions of working people who would otherwise be languishing in abject poverty depend on these tax credits.
  • (9) It was an abject defeat for a leader whose response to the migration crisis deserved better.
  • (10) Meanwhile the victims are sitting there in abject poverty and have not received any compensation."
  • (11) The aim was to secure a politically and militarily allied government in a strategically important country, a mission which David Cameron amusingly declared this week to have been "accomplished" despite the western alliance's abject failure over 12 years to defeat that Taliban's rag-tag army and the refusal of the corrupt Hamid Karzai administration to play ball over the country's long-term future .
  • (12) But it bears testament, too, to the Brown government's abject failure to give a comprehensible account of itself that the opposition should find such easy pickings.
  • (13) It's all there: sexual and social confusion, vulnerability and violence, alienation and loneliness, the oscillation between feeling abject and worthless and wanting to take over the world, the fantasies of power and revenge.
  • (14) "Outright hostility, abject surrender - that's what you have seen in the past.
  • (15) The picture you have painted is one of abject squalor made worse by a generally lazy approach to hygiene.
  • (16) Smith could not have been more abjectly humiliated.
  • (17) Given the abject failure of much of the western media to scrutinise its actions – at least until it's too late – it may believe it can get away with it.
  • (18) He ended up with five during the Euro 2016 qualifying campaign but all came in the fixtures against an abject Gibraltar, featuring a hat-trick in the home game scored, memorably, from a combined total of eight yards.
  • (19) Mick Cash, RMT general secretary, said: “The abject failure by Southern rail in yesterday’s talks to take the safety issues seriously has left us with no option but to confirm further action.
  • (20) Recent weeks have seen a succession of good news stories from Iraq, including the ceremonial reopening of the national museum, whose looting in 2003 symbolised the abject failure to plan for the post-war period.

Groveling


Definition:

  • (p. pr. & vb. n.) of Grovel
  • (a.) Lying prone; low; debased.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Lord Young , the prime minister's enterprise adviser, was forced to issue a grovelling apology last night after he claimed most Britons "had never had it so good during this so called recession".
  • (2) And instead of celebrating bumper peak viewing figures of more than 20m for the England match, ITV was instead having to issue a grovelling apology.
  • (3) If they want me to get down and grovel on the floor; no, never.
  • (4) I was showing a person groveling to take back a statement made long ago!
  • (5) This week his previous grovelling before communist China over steel tariffs has returned to haunt him.
  • (6) From 1969 to 1985 he also wrote the Grovel gossip column in Private Eye, whose then editor, Richard Ingrams, dubbed him the Greatest Living Englishman despite, or because of, more writs.
  • (7) It didn't happen and, as Simon Jenkins put it , "Cameron could hardly have grovelled lower.
  • (8) "With her blonde hair and her ability to ask the most grovelling questions, she is rapidly becoming the female Fabricant – or at least Fabricant Mark I, before he stopped crawling and became an elder statesman."
  • (9) There's even a slot called Friday Boss, in which the programme's usual rules of engagement are set aside and its reporters grovel before the corporate idol.
  • (10) Bashir immediately erupted in a ball of fiery rage, cutting Hardin off, refusing to let him speak, repeatedly demanding an apology for this grievous assault on the integrity of a military man, and then – when Hardin failed sufficiently to grovel for the crime of speaking ill of Gen Dempsey – Bashir kicked Hardin off the show by abruptly ending the interview.
  • (11) The Countess of Wessex, 2001 Sophie Wessex reportedly had to write grovelling apologies to Prince Charles, Tony Blair and William Hague after Mahmood lured her into making highly embarrassing comments about them.
  • (12) Some MPs are saying the better solution would be to fine them, rather than to require them to grovel in front of the highest court in the land.
  • (13) Organisers of a conference celebrating the best and brightest businesspeople in the north of England have issued a grovelling apology over lack of female representation.
  • (14) HSBC has made mistakes in the past, and for them I am very sorry,” his successor Douglas Flint, the former long-serving finance director, told shareholders in July 2012: “Candidly, in particular areas we fell short of the standards that I, my colleagues, our regulators, customers, and investors expect.” A grovel was the only position Flint could adopt.
  • (15) The response from architects grovelling for the fame of a tower in their CVs is that they are "only obeying orders" from clients, and that tall buildings are "the future".
  • (16) For the 100th time, I never “mocked” a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him “groveling” when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad.
  • (17) There, in all its hilarious glory, is the joke by Jimmy Carr that was transmitted on Loose Ends at the weekend, for the broadcast of which the BBC has issued a grovelling apology.
  • (18) It sees him mock his own grovelling appearance on BBC Newsnight in November, when he admitted that Dapper Laughs was “a type of comedy that I should not have been doing”.
  • (19) Michael Richards Made a grovelling apology over his 2006 rant in which he used the N-word, paradoxically on David Letterman's show.
  • (20) It said the intent was to demonstrate a resolute stand with places that share America's values – a hint at the Republican contender's claim that Obama has let down Washington's friends abroad while offering grovelling apologies to its enemies.

Words possibly related to "groveling"