Groop

From Middle English grope, grupe, groupe, from Old English grōp ("ditch"), from Proto-Germanic *grōpō ("furrow, ditch, trench"), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰreb-, *gʰrebʰ- ("to dig, furrow, scratch"). Cognate with Scots gruip ("gutter, drain, ditch, trench"), North Frisian groop ("pit"), Dutch groep ("a trench, moat"), Swedish grop ("a pit, ditch, hole, hollow"), Old English grēp, grēpe ("land-drain, ditch; furrow; burrow; privy"). More at grip, groove.

Alternative forms

• grupe, groap, grube

Full definition of groop

Noun

1. (obsolete or UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) A trench or small ditch.
2. (obsolete or UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) A trench or drain; particularly, a trench or hollow behind the stalls of cows or horses for receiving their dung and urine.
• 1816 , James Cleland , Annals of Glasgow Chapter , The groop is one foot six inches wide, six and one-half inches deep at one end … to carry off the urine into a reservoir under the Cowhouse, …
• 2008, Dennis O'Driscoll, Seamus Heaney, Stepping stones:Cleaning the byre involved barrowing out the contents of the groop, sluicing it down and rebedding it with clean straw.
3. (obsolete or UK dialectal, Northern England, Scotland) A pen for cattle; a byre.

Verb

1. (obsolete) To make a channel or groove; to form grooves.

Alteration of group. More at group.

Noun

1. Alternative form of group
• 1828 , William Taylor , Historic Survey of German Poetry Chapter , Revival of Fine Literature — Swiss groop of Poets ...
• 1834 , Charles Augustus Davis , Letters of J. Downing, Major Chapter , … and laid his Hickory and hat down afore him, and all our folks began to nock noses in little groops here and there;
• 1985 , Thomas Beth, Dieter Jungnickel, Hanfried Lenz , Design Theory Chapter , Delete one point x and consider as new groops the point sets B\{x} where B is any block of D containing x.
• 2004 , Dept. of Combinatorics and Optimization , Ars Combinatoria, Volumes 72-73 Chapter , A groop divisible design on v points with groop size g and block size k is called a t-GDk,g,;v if every subset of t distinct points that contains no two points from the same groop is contained in exactly one block.

Verb

1. Alternative form of group
• 1810 , , The works of the English poets, from Chaucer to Cowper Chapter , I GROOPED in thy pocket pretty peate.
• 1829 , , The Battle of Navarino: Or the Renegade Chapter , Grooped around the fires on which they were preparing their provisions, …