ground

Valid in Scrabble

Scrabble points: 8
Words With Friends: 11
Letters: 6

Pronunciation

/ɡɹaʊnd/

See all 2 pronunciations

/ɡɹaʊnd/ · /ɡɹʊnd/

Definition of ground

39 senses · 3 parts of speech · etymology included

noun

(countable, uncountable)The surface of the Earth, as opposed to the sky or water or underground.

“Look, I found a ten dollar bill on the ground!”
“If the afternoon was fine they strolled together in the park, very slowly, and with pauses to draw breath wherever the ground sloped upward. The slightest effort made the patient cough.”
“Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […] Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.”
“From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. Those entering it are greeted by wire fences, walls dating back to colonial times and security posts.”

See all 39 definitions

noun

(countable, uncountable)The surface of the Earth, as opposed to the sky or water or underground.

“Look, I found a ten dollar bill on the ground!”
“If the afternoon was fine they strolled together in the park, very slowly, and with pauses to draw breath wherever the ground sloped upward. The slightest effort made the patient cough.”
“Mind you, clothes were clothes in those days. […] Frills, ruffles, flounces, lace, complicated seams and gores: not only did they sweep the ground and have to be held up in one hand elegantly as you walked along, but they had little capes or coats or feather boas.”
“From the ground, Colombo’s port does not look like much. Those entering it are greeted by wire fences, walls dating back to colonial times and security posts.”
(uncountable)Terrain.

“As the terrain-following radar scans the ground ahead of the aircraft the actual clearance height is measured by the radio altimeter.”
(countable, uncountable)Soil, earth.

“The worm crawls through the ground.”
(countable)The bottom of a body of water.
(countable, uncountable)Basis, foundation, groundwork, legwork.

“Wyth cry unreverent, Before the sacrament, Wythin the holy church bowndis, That of our fayth the grownd is.”
“[B]e the consequences what they may, they shall not move an inch, nor a hair's-breadth from the ground of their groundless spiritual independence, […]”
(countable, in-plural, uncountable)Reason, (epistemic) justification, cause.

“You will need to show good grounds for your action.”
“He could not come on grounds of health, or on health grounds.”
(countable, uncountable)Background, context, framework, surroundings.
(countable, historical, uncountable)The area on which a battle is fought, particularly as referring to the area occupied by one side or the other. Often, according to the eventualities, "to give ground" or "to gain ground".
(broadly, countable, figuratively, uncountable)Advantage given or gained in any contest; e.g. in football, chess, debate or academic discourse.
(countable, in-compounds, uncountable)A place suited to a specified activity.

“a forest traditionally used as a hunting-ground”
“I gather from your last answer that at the present time the constabulary, to a certain extent, is good recruiting ground for the army?”
(countable, uncountable)The plain surface upon which the figures of an artistic composition are set.

“crimson flowers on a white ground”
“[…] to pad a piece in diluted acetate of alumine to obtain a pale lemon ground […]”
“One and All is the motto of the County of Cornwall, used below the coat-of-arms, which is a shield embracing fifteen bezants, or golden roundels, on a black ground; [...].”
(countable, uncountable)A flat surface upon which figures are raised in relief.
(countable, uncountable)The net of small meshes upon which the embroidered pattern is applied.

“Brussels ground”
(countable, uncountable)A gummy substance spread over the surface of a metal to be etched, to prevent the acid from eating except where an opening is made by the needle.
(countable, in-plural, uncountable)One of the pieces of wood, flush with the plastering, to which mouldings etc. are attached.

“Grounds are usually put up first and the plastering floated flush with them.”
(UK, countable)A soccer stadium.

“Manchester United's ground is known as Old Trafford.”
(countable, uncountable)An electrical conductor connected to the earth, or a large conductor whose electrical potential is taken as zero (such as a steel chassis).

“А ground may be undesirable, inadvertent, or accidental path taken by an electrical current; or it may be the deliberate provision of conductors well connected to the ground by means of plates buried therein, or similar device.”
(Philippines, countable, uncountable)Electric shock.
(countable)The area of grass on which a match is played (a cricket field); the entire arena in which it is played; the part of the field behind a batsman's popping crease where he can not be run out (hence to make one's ground).
(countable, uncountable)A composition in which the bass, consisting of a few bars of independent notes, is continually repeated to a varying melody.
(countable, uncountable)The tune on which descants are raised; the plain song.

“Buck[ingham] The Mayor is here at hand; pretend ſome fear, // Be not you ſpoke with, but by mighty ſuit; // And look you get a prayer-book in your hand, // And ſtand between two churchmen, good my lord, // For on that ground I’ll build a holy deſcant: // And be not eaſily won to our requeſts: // Play the maid’s part, ſtill anſwer nay, and take it.”
(countable, uncountable)The pit of a theatre.

“the understanding gentlemen o' the ground here ask'd my judgment”
(India, countable, obsolete, uncountable)Synonym of munny (“land measure”).

“It is sub-divided into annas (or 16ths), of 3,600 square feet each; or when the land is for building purposes, into grounds (munnies) of 1/24 of a cawny each, as in the town of Madras.”

verb

(US, transitive)To connect (an electrical conductor or device) to a ground.

“These geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) can become a hazard when they flow through conducting infrastructure, usually entering and exiting networks where equipment is grounded to Earth.”
(Philippines, transitive)To electrocute.
(transitive)To punish, especially a child or teenager, by forcing them to stay at home and/or give up certain privileges.

“If you don't clean your room, I'll have no choice but to ground you.”
“Eric, you are grounded until further notice for lying to us about where you were last night!”
“My kids are currently grounded from television.”
(transitive)To forbid (an aircraft or pilot) to fly.

“Because of the bad weather, all flights were grounded.”
(transitive)To give a basic education in a particular subject; to instruct in elements or first principles.

“Jim was grounded in maths.”
To place a bat or part of the body on the ground to avoid being run out.
To hit a ground ball. Compare fly (verb (regular)) and line (verb).

“[Ichiro Suzuki] went 0 for 4, popping out in foul territory, grounding out to second, and striking out looking. And then, in the top of the eighth inning with a runner on second, the “True Hit King” grounded out to short, just barely failing to beat it out.”
“The Twins scored three times in the eighth to make it 9-4 and loaded the bases with no outs. Jeurys Familia got Willians Astudillo to ground into a double play, limiting the damage.”
(transitive)To place something on the ground.
(intransitive)To run aground; to strike the bottom and remain fixed.

“The ship grounded on the bar.”
To found; to fix or set, as on a foundation, reason, or principle; to furnish a ground for; to fix firmly.

“being rooted and grounded in love”
“So far from warranting any inference to the existence of a God, would, on the contrary, ground even an argument to his negation.”
To cover with a ground, as a copper plate for etching, or as paper or other materials with a uniform tint as a preparation for ornament.
(transitive)To improve or focus the mental or emotional state of.

“I ground myself with meditation.”
(transitive)To complement a machine learning model with relevant information it was not trained on.

“We design WikiChat (Figure 1) to ground LLMs using Wikipedia to achieve the following objectives. While LLMs tend to hallucinate, our chatbot should be factual.”
“But the technology has evolved rapidly over the past year or so. Today’s systems can incorporate real-time search and use increasingly sophisticated methods for “grounding”—connecting AI outputs to specific, verifiable knowledge and sourced analysis.”
(form-of, participle, past)simple past and past participle of grind

“I ground the coffee up nicely.”

adj

(not-comparable)Crushed, or reduced to small particles.

“ground mustard seed”
“Alike, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seemed ground to finest dust, and powdered, for the time, in the clamped mortar of Ahab's iron soul.”
“The intestinal contents of F. Stellifer seem finely ground in comparison to those of F. catenatus, probably as a result of chewing with the stout pharyngeal molars.”
“Powder mixing and grinding are complete when the powder is homogenous and grey-black in color, appears finely ground, and feels smooth.”
(not-comparable)Processed by grinding.

“lenses of ground glass”
“the traces of wear have the appearance of dull patches that look ground.”
“The axial perforation, the handle socket and the quern base are all rough and do not appear ground or polished”
“An advantage of such a finishing tool is that, after the machining, the workpiece has high surface quality. The surface which is produced appears finely ground to polished by means of this procedure.”

Definitions from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA.

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *gʰrem-der. Proto-Germanic *grunduz Old English grund Middle English ground English ground From Middle English ground, from Old English grund, from Proto-West Germanic *grundu, from Proto-Germanic *grunduz. Cognate with West Frisian grûn, Dutch grond and German Grund. (to punish): Compare (to bring) down to earth, to come down to earth.