What's the difference between gravel and grovel?

Gravel


Definition:

  • (n.) Small stones, or fragments of stone; very small pebbles, often intermixed with particles of sand.
  • (n.) A deposit of small calculous concretions in the kidneys and the urinary or gall bladder; also, the disease of which they are a symptom.
  • (v. t.) To cover with gravel; as, to gravel a walk.
  • (v. t.) To run (as a ship) upon the gravel or beach; to run aground; to cause to stick fast in gravel or sand.
  • (v. t.) To check or stop; to embarrass; to perplex.
  • (v. t.) To hurt or lame (a horse) by gravel lodged between the shoe and foot.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The dogs were housed in gravel-based, outdoor pens with doghouses in a high-altitude, high-sunshine level environment.
  • (2) Except for the blue guard towers it is drained of colour, a grey sameness coating gravel, fences and buildings.
  • (3) A former showgirl from the gravel pits of Wraysbury in Berkshire, Keeler was just 19 and was staying on the estate with her friend, patron and (some said) pimp, the society osteopath Stephen Ward.
  • (4) I found myself skirting the wood’s perimeter, a no-go zone of the past for us, and came next to a gravel-pocked face mined by rabbits with one of the burrows crowned with the skull of an ancestor.
  • (5) Opening up these magnificent forests for logging is like mining the great pyramids of Egypt for road gravel," said McKim.
  • (6) A potholed gravel road runs to a campsite at the mouth of the Mattole river and from there you can wander south down the coast for 25 miles before you come to the next road, at Shelter Cove.
  • (7) On the Sabbath the fleet of earthmovers that ordinarily grind the route to Lombrum – ferrying gravel to the detention centre building site where a crew of 300 labor to finish new staff accommodation – are resting in their compound.
  • (8) The reactivity of soils varies widely as geological and sedimentological conditions offer typical but different environments: gravels, chalk soil, clay, salt soils, sands, cave earths are examples of this wide variety, including atmospheric and biogenetic implications.
  • (9) The cellar level is on the average 5.4 times higher if the cellar has partially a gravel or earth floor than if the whole cellar surface is covered with a concrete floor.
  • (10) But it doesn't work that way: you may have "less gravel", but most writers agree that you can only have "fewer pebbles", not "less pebbles".
  • (11) This biomass was computed from that of the organisms and associated naphthalene oxidation activity washed from the gravel compared with the original suspension.
  • (12) We can talk about "many pebbles" but not "much pebbles", "much gravel" but not "many gravel".
  • (13) Ultrasound detected 59 of 60 foreign bodies, including all cubes of meat embedded with gravel, cactus spine, plastic, metal, and wood.
  • (14) Tulisa led, and did so with panache and some beautiful gravel.
  • (15) This means putting a layer of bark, grass cuttings, manure, even gravel on top of the soil to trap moisture in the earth, or at least slow down evaporation.
  • (16) Aged 102, Bi Kidude, the gravel-voiced singer known her raucous sense of humour and her love of cigarettes, suddenly vanished from her home.
  • (17) Trying to solve an actual problem of enhancing the spontaneous passage of fragments, "calculous trails" and gravel in the patients who underwent remote lithotripsy the authors used the technique of local vibrotherapy in 54 postoperative patients.
  • (18) We are on a gravel track and have been driving for a long time.
  • (19) One of its largest islands is gentle-paced Brønnøya, with its apple orchards, gravel roads and beaches.
  • (20) Photograph: Water Literacy Foundation In Masagi’s pit-based system, permanent structures of mud, sand, soil, gravel and boulders are built, eight per acre of farmland, and partially filled with a mix of gravel and sand.

Grovel


Definition:

  • (adv.) To creep on the earth, or with the face to the ground; to lie prone, or move uneasily with the body prostrate on the earth; to lie fiat on one's belly, expressive of abjectness; to crawl.
  • (adv.) To tend toward, or delight in, what is sensual or base; to be low, abject, or mean.

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.