Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Grope

Grope (grōp) , intransitive verb

[Old English gropen, gropien, grapien, Anglo-Saxon grāpian to touch, grope, from grīpan to gripe. See Gripe.]

1.
To feel with or use the hands; to handle. [Obsolete]
2.
To search or attempt to find something in the dark, or, as a blind person, by feeling; to move about hesitatingly, as in darkness or obscurity; to feel one's way, as with the hands, when one can not see.
We grope for the wall like the blind. — Is. lix. 10
To grope a little longer among the miseries and sensualities ot a worldly life. — Buckminster

Grope , transitive verb

1.
To search out by feeling in the dark; as, we groped our way at midnight.
2.
To examine; to test; to sound. [Obsolete] — Chaucer
Felix gropeth him, thinking to have a bribe. — Genevan Test. (Acts xxiv. )