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groove

nounverbattested in dialogue

  • United Kingdom//ɡɹuːv//
  • United States//ɡɹuv//

A long, narrow channel or depression; e.g., such a slot cut into a hard material to provide a location for an engineering component, a tire groove, or a geological channel or depression.

noun

  1. 1

    A long, narrow channel or depression; e.g., such a slot cut into a hard material to provide a location for an engineering component, a tire groove, or a geological channel or depression.

  2. 2

    A fixed routine.

    Through these distresses, the Odd Girl was cheerful and exemplary. But within four hours after dark we had got into a supernatural groove, and the Odd Girl had seen “Eyes,” and was in hysterics.

    The gregarious trifling of life in the social groove.

    His counterpart Neil Warnock got his tactics spot on as Chelsea struggled to get into any sort of groove in the first half.

  3. 3

    The middle of the strike zone in baseball where a pitch is most easily hit.

  4. 4

    A pronounced, enjoyable rhythm.

    Now, what you hear is not a test, I'm rapping to the beat / And me, the groove, and my friends are gonna try to move your feet

    Let the music play / He won't get away / This groove he can't ignore

    Get into the groove / Boy, you've got to prove / Your love to me / Get up on your feet / Yeah, step to the beat

  5. 5

    datedA good feeling (often as in the groove).

    You can't hide forever, just decide to make it better / Turn it into something good / Remember, you can choose not to lose / Find your groove and be a winner

    How could he be expected to make music that put the audience in a groove, he reasoned, if he wasn't grooving himself?

  6. 6

    A shaft or excavation.

  7. 7

    The optimal route around the track, or any of several such routes.

Etymology

From Middle English grov, grove, groof, grofe (“cave; pit; mining shaft”), probably from Old Norse gróf (“pit”) or from Middle Dutch groeve (“furrow, ditch”), both from Proto-West Germanic *grōbu, from Proto-Germanic *grōbō (“groove, furrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰrebʰ- (“to dig, scrape, bury”). Cognate with Cimbrian gruuba (“gorge, ravine”), Dutch groef, groeve (“groove; pit, grave”), German Grube (“ditch, pit”), Luxembourgish Grouf (“pit, mine”), Mòcheno gruab (“mine”), Icelandic gróf (“pit, hollow”), Gothic 𐌲𐍂𐍉𐌱𐌰 (grōba, “foxhole”), Serbo-Croatian grèbati (“scratch, dig”). Related to Old English grafan (“to dig”). More at grave.

verb

  1. 1

    To cut a groove or channel in; to form into channels or grooves; to furrow.

    The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run.

  2. 2

    To perform, dance to, or enjoy rhythmic music.

    I was just starting to groove to the band when we had to leave.

    Well, I got my way of groovin' / Sitting down right in my seat / I get soul satisfaction / Yeah, without jumpin' up and down on my feet

Forms

plural
grooves
past tense
grooved
past participle
grooved
present participle
grooving
third person singular
grooves
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).