bow and scrape

English

bow and scrape (third-person singular simple present bows and scrapes, present participle bowing and scraping, simple past and past participle bowed and scraped)

To make a deep bow with the right leg drawn back (thus scraping the floor), left hand pressed across the abdomen, right arm held aside.
(idiomatic, by extension) To behave in a servile, obsequious, or excessively polite manner.
- 1988 March 27, Newgate Callendar, "Crime" (book review of The Vulgar Boatman by William G. Tapply), New York Times (retrieved 25 Nov 2012):
  But he is not one of those lawyers who bow and scrape before wealthy clients. He will not be pushed around.

(make a deep bow with the right leg draw back): make a leg
(behave in a servile, obsequious, or excessively polite manner): brownnose, fawn, suck up

behave in a servile, obsequious, or excessively polite manner

bow and scrape (plural bows and scrapes)

A deep formal bow with right leg drawn back touching the ground.
- 1851 April 9, Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables, a Romance, Boston, Mass.: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields:
  [H]e took off his Highland bonnet, and performed a bow and scrape.

deep formal bow