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bow and scrape
Idioms and Phrases
Behave obsequiously or too deferentially, as in In this fashionable store, the salespersons virtually bow and scrape before customers . This term alludes to the old-fashioned custom of bowing so deeply that one's foot draws back and scrapes the ground. A cliché for a century or more, it may be dying out. [Mid-1600s]Example Sentences
If Trump means it increases the chances of Ukraine not having to bow and scrape and surrender, then I follow what he’s saying.
But the program that he's contemplating as his instrument to pay back all those who've refused to bow and scrape before him is a full-on fascist agenda.
For one thing, it tracks: Every society has its rulers, whether they’re overprivileged nobles or First Families of Virginia — both groups expecting the peasants to bow and scrape before their money and power.
It makes the deplorables feel powerful, watching people like McConnell and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy bow and scrape to the ludicrous reality TV host foisted on them by their own voters.
The former president has long taken special delight in bringing to heel Republicans who, having criticized him, are forced to acknowledge his supremacy in the party and bow and scrape for his approval.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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