Word definition: ground

Etimology


From Middle English grounde, from Old English grund, from Proto-Germanic *grunduz. Cognate with West Frisian grûn, Dutch grond and German Grund.

noun


ground (countable and uncountable, plural grounds)

The surface of the Earth, as opposed to the sky or water or underground.

(uncountable) Terrain.

Soil, earth.

(countable) The bottom of a body of water.

Basis, foundation, groundwork, legwork.

(chiefly in the plural) Reason, (epistemic) justification, cause.

Background, context, framework, surroundings.

(historical) 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".

(figurative, by extension) Advantage given or gained in any contest; e.g. in football, chess, debate or academic discourse.

(in combination) A place suited to a specified activity.

The plain surface upon which the figures of an artistic composition are set.

(sculpture) A flat surface upon which figures are raised in relief.

(point lace) The net of small meshes upon which the embroidered pattern is applied.

(etching) 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.

(architecture, chiefly in the plural) One of the pieces of wood, flush with the plastering, to which mouldings etc. are attached.

(countable) A soccer stadium.

(electricity, Canada and US) An electrical conductor connected to the earth, or a large conductor whose electrical potential is taken as zero (such as a steel chassis).

(electricity, Philippines) Electric shock.

(countable, cricket) 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).

(music) A composition in which the bass, consisting of a few bars of independent notes, is continually repeated to a varying melody.

(music) The tune on which descants are raised; the plain song.

The pit of a theatre.

(India, obsolete) Synonym of munny (“land measure”)

Examples


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.

As the terrain-following radar scans the ground ahead of the aircraft the actual clearance height is measured by the radio altimeter.

The worm crawls through the ground.

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, […]

You will need to show good grounds for your action.

He could not come on grounds of health, or on health grounds.

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?

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; [...].

Brussels ground

Grounds are usually put up first and the plastering floated flush with them.

Manchester United's ground is known as Old Trafford.

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.

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.

the understanding gentlemen o' the ground here ask'd my judgment

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

Related words


synonyms

(electricity) earth (British)

hyponyms

break ground

breeding ground

burial ground

campground

camping ground

common ground

cricket ground

cumber ground

fairground

gain ground

give ground

high ground

home ground

lose ground

middle ground

moral high ground

neutral ground

parade ground

picnic ground

pleasure ground

proving ground

school ground

showground

singing ground

solid ground

sports ground

stamping ground

stomping ground

teeing ground

testing ground

training ground

vantage ground

verb


ground (third-person singular simple present grounds, present participle grounding, simple past and past participle grounded)

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

(Philippines) To electrocute.

(transitive) To punish, especially a child or teenager, by forcing them to stay at home and/or give up certain privileges.

(transitive) To forbid (an aircraft or pilot) to fly.

To give a basic education in a particular subject; to instruct in elements or first principles.

(baseball) To hit a ground ball. Compare fly (verb (regular)) and line (verb).

To place something on the ground.

(intransitive) To run aground; to strike the bottom and remain fixed.

To found; to fix or set, as on a foundation, reason, or principle; to furnish a ground for; to fix firmly.

(fine arts) 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.

To improve or focus the mental or emotional state of.

(machine learning) To complement a machine learning model with relevant information it was not trained on.

Examples


Synonym: earth

These geomagnetically induced currents can become a hazard when they flow through conducting infrastructure, usually entering and exiting networks where equipment is grounded to Earth.

Synonym: gate

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.

Because of the bad weather, all flights were grounded.

Jim was grounded in maths.

[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.

The ship grounded on the bar.

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.

I ground myself with meditation.

We design WikiChat to ground LLMs using Wikipedia to achieve the following objectives. While LLMs tend to hallucinate, our chatbot should be factual.

Etimology


Inflected form of grind. See also milled.

verb


ground

simple past and past participle of grind

Examples


I ground the coffee up nicely.

adjective


ground (not comparable)

Crushed, or reduced to small particles.

Processed by grinding.

Examples


Synonym: milled

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.

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.

Data provided by Wiktionary