Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also grople) to fondle or touch the breasts, buttocks or genitals of someone, esp. a potential partner in order to assess their response to one’s advances.

c.1367–86		Langland Piers Plowman (B) XIII line 343: With likynge of lecherie as by lokynge of his eighe. For ech a maide that he mette, he made hire a sibgne Semynge to synnward, and somtyme he gan taste Aboute the mouth or bynethe bigynneth to grope.
a.1380		St Bernard 133 n Horstm. Altengl. Leg. (1878) 43: Heo lay stille a luytel whil, Þen heo groped him atte laste [OED].
1545		R. Kele Christmas carolles n.p.: This fryer began the nunne to grope.
1569–70		T. Preston Cambyses B: ambi.: What and ye run in the corner of some prettie maide? snuff: To grope there good fellow I will not be afraid.
1577		Misogonus in Farmer (1906) I iii: I would have kept the throng, And there have been groping some maidens in the dark. [Ibid.] II iv: He’ll not bash to grope a trull, to smack and to kiss.
1583		P. Stubbes Anatomie of Abuses 99: For what clipping, what culling, what kissing and bussing, what smouching and slabbering one of another, what filthie groping and vncleane handling is not practised.
c.1632		R. Brome A Novella III i: Signor you must not gripe nor grope here.
1654		Mercurius Fumigosus 11 9 Aug. 104: Her hand betwixt my wasteband slipt, to grope in bussywise, / Which caus’d a giggling in her Lipps, a googgling in her Eyes.
1660		Wandring Whore I 10: But use not that custom of picking mens pockets whilst they are groping your plackets.
1672–75		‘Merry Discourse Between a Country Lass & a Young Taylor’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) II 71: Having groped her purse, / and taken all her money, / He grop’d again, and mist, / And caught her by the Coney.
1681		Oldham Satires upon the Jesuits IV 53: [The] hands that held his God before Straight grope himself, and by and by a whore.
1703		Hell Upon Earth 3: When the Cully is groping Jilt in a Dark Alley with his Breeches down, she picks his Pockets.
1715		Proceedings Old Bailey 27 Apr. 5/1: Blandford open’d the Door laughing, and said, Captain, you are a Man Midwife, I hope you have grop’d her well.
1770		T. Chatterton Revenge II iv: Go mind your toping, / Never come groping / Into my quarters, I desire, Sir: Here you come horning, / And adorning—.
1834		‘The Grand Turk In Constantinople’ Flash Chaunter 20: ’Twas when an old Rogue, a fair damsel did grople, / And The Grand Turk was entering Constantinople.
1836		‘Drawing Out the Long Tooth’ Comic Songster and Gentleman’s Private Cabinet 41: He’d ventured to grope her too oft on the sly.
1841		‘The Rose Under The Clothes’ Gentleman’s Spicey Songster 32: The rogue he got sporting and groping about.
1896		Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 206: Patiner. To touch; ‘to grope’.
1902		D. St John Memoirs of Madge Buford 106: ‘You’ll make fun of us, will you?’ said Ralph, and he bang groped me.
1933		Hecht & Fowler Great Magoo 32: He croons and gropes.
1949		‘Swasarnt Nerf’ et al. Gay Girl’s Guide 10: grope: To feel someone’s penis (usually with reference to semi-public conditions where one must remain more or less clothed.
1953		T. Williams Camino Real Block Three: One of them’s got my wallet! Picked it out of my pocket while that old whore there was groping me!
1959		‘Count Palmiro Vicarion’ Limericks 14: There was a young lady named Dowd / Whom a young fellow groped in the crowd.
1967		I. Rosenthal Sheeper 180: Would you understand if I plunged my hand [...] and reached down to grope you?
1978		F. Norman Dead Butler Caper 49: A paunchy tycoon [...] was frantically groping a flighty young thing half his age.
1989		M. Amis London Fields 154: Keith launched into a squalid decameron of recent gallops and tumbles, instant liaisons, valiant cuckoldries, eagerly requited grabbings and gropings.
1992		R. Barnard A Fatal Attachment (1993) 185: All he thinks of doing is groping. I hate gropers.
2000		Guardian 7 Apr. 19: Top female officer ‘was groped at the Pentagon’.
2012		IOL News (SA) 3 Jan. 🌐 She screamed at her tormentors [...] as they groped her.

2. (US campus) to act in a clumsy manner.

1984

Eble Campus Sl. Mar. 3: grope – commit an embarrassing, clumsy act: He really groped in the basketball game last night.