These words refer to someone who shrinks from a person or action because of alarm, cowardice or servility. Flinch indicates an involuntary and startled drawing back in the course of performing an action.

• Flinching from the anticipated report of the rifles is the most common cause of poor marksmanship; She flinched as the doctor inserted the needle in her arm.

At its most concrete, as in these examples, the word suggests a convulsed recoil or muscular spasm. The word can function more abstractly to refer to any psychological reluctance or avoidance: He flinched from thinking about the wife and children he had left behind. While flinch most often suggests alarm or fear as the cause of the recoil, wince points to pain or discomfort as the motivating factor. The recoiling action, furthermore, may be a slighter, briefer or less noticeable movement than that indicated by flinch : She gingerly touched her bruised shin and winced at the pain. The word can function less literally for any pained response: She winced and blinked under his withering attack. In this context, flinch better suggests initial aversion or reluctance, while wince is better suited to describing a discomfited response.

Cringe is more general than the preceding pair and can function in the place of either, referring to any recoil caused either by fear or pain. The action may not be so intense or sudden as those of flinch and wince , but it may be longer-lasting: left standing by the rail to cringe under a steady onslaught of see spray. Also, spasmodic movement is not suggested here so much as a crouched or stooped posture. This is especially true when the word refers to servile, cowardly or obsequious behaviour: slaves who cringed under the wrath of their master; a candidate who cringed from direct confrontation with his opponent; disgusted by the way he cringed and fawned before his teacher in rapt self-abasement.

Cower and grovel both relate more closely to cringe than to the first pair of words, emphasizing stooped or sprawled postures adopted out of fear, servility or obsequiousness. Cower , however, can also indicate a fearful and trembling recoil or drawing back from danger, pain or extreme discomfort: He cowered in frozen panic as the horses stampeded towards him; oarsmen who cowered and groaned at each fall of the lash. In reference to obsequiousness, cower is now more specific, vivid and disapproving than cringe , indicating someone who seeks approval by an extreme display of deferential humility: the sanctimonious remorse with which he cowered before the judge in hope of winning a lighter sentence. Grovel is the most extreme of all the words in any of the situations possible for this group; it specifically points to a sprawled or prone position, suggesting abject and incapacitating fear, loathsome servility or self abasing adoration: choked with sobs and grovelling on the floor in terror as the two men fought over her; those who hope to influence policy by grovelling before the policy-makers and flattering their sense of self-importance; He worshipped is wife so much that no amount of grovelling seemed adequate to express his utter surrender to her.