ground

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.

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XXIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

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.

1977, Agatha Christie, chapter 4, in An Autobiography, part II, London: Collins, →ISBN:

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.

2013 June 8, “The new masters and commanders”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8839, page 52:

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

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

1971, “The development of terrain following radar: an account of the progress made with an airborne guidance system for low flying military aircraft”, in Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology:

The worm crawls through the ground.

(countable) The bottom of a body of water.

Wyth cry unreverent,
Before the sacrament,
Wythin the holy church bowndis,
That of our fayth the grownd is.

c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 62, lines 11–14:

[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, […]

1840, Lewis Rose, chapter III, in An Humble Attempt to Put an End to the Present Divisions in the Church of Scotland, and to Promote Her Usefulness. […] , Glasgow: George Gallie, →OCLC, page 51:

You will need to show good grounds for your action.

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

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

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.

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?

1876, Parliamentary Papers, volume 14, Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons, page 147:

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

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; [...].

1941 December, “The Why and the Wherefore: Cornish names of G.W.R. locomotives”, in Railway Magazine, page 575:

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

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

Brussels ground

(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.

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

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

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.

1961, “GROUND”, in The International Dictionary of Physics and Electronics, 2nd edition, Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, page 539:

(electricity) 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.

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.

c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene vii]:

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

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

1614 November 10 (first performance; Gregorian calendar), Beniamin Iohnson [i.e., Ben Jonson], Bartholmew Fayre: A Comedie, […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Robert Allot, […], published 1631, →OCLC, (please specify the page):

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.

1885, Manual of the Administration of the Madras Presidency, page 515:

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

en-noun

ground (countable and uncountable, plural grounds)

cut the ground from under someone's feet

know one's ass from a hole in the ground

know one's head from a hole in the ground

know the difference between one's ass and a hole in the ground

fon

background, context, framework, surroundings

taistelukenttä

historical: area on which a battle is fought

syy

advantage given or gained in any contest

tausta

sculpture: flat surface upon which figures are raised in relief

maski

etching: gummy substance spread over the surface of a metal to be etched

torpaqalama

electrical conductor connected to point of zero potential

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.


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.

2023 November 15, Prof. Jim Wild, “This train was delayed because of bad weather in space”, in RAIL, number 996, page 30:

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

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

Because of the bad weather, all flights were grounded.

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

Jim was grounded in maths.

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

(cricket) To place a bat or part of the body on the ground to avoid being run out.

[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.

2019 March 21, Chris Cwik, “Ichiro Suzuki Goes Out in Style, Retires After Series in Japan”, in Yahoo! Sports:

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.

2019 April 10, Ben Walker (AP), “Twins Pitchers Go Wild, Syndergaard and Mets Stroll 9-6”, in Yahoo! Sports, archived from the original on 2019-04-11:

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

The ship grounded on the bar.

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

being rooted and grounded in love

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Ephesians 3:17:

So far from warranting any inference to the existence of a God, would, on the contrary, ground even an argument to his negation.

1859–1860, William Hamilton, edited by H[enry] L[ongueville] Mansel and John Veitch, Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC:

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.

I ground myself with meditation.

To improve or focus the mental or emotional state of.

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.

2023, Sina J. Semnani, Violet Z. Yao, Heidi C. Zhang, Monica S. Lam, “WikiChat: A Few-Shot LLM-Based Chatbot Grounded with Wikipedia”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name):

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.

2025 May 9, Mike Caulfield, “AI Is Not Your Friend”, in The Atlantic:

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

en-verb

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

grounds (present singular third-person)
grounding (participle present)
grounded (participle past)
grounded (past)
GND (alternative)

oppia perusteet

to gain a basic education of a particular subject


ground

I ground the coffee up nicely.

simple past and past participle of grind

Inflected form of grind. See also milled.


ground

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.

1969, Tulane Studies in Zoology and Botany, volume 16, page 16:

Powder mixing and grinding are complete when the powder is homogenous and grey-black in color, appears finely ground, and feels smooth.

2018, S Sivakumar, E Zwier, PB Meisenheimer…, “Bulk and Thin Film Synthesis of Compositionally Variant Entropy-stabilized Oxides”, in Journal of Visualized Experiments:

lenses of ground glass

the traces of wear have the appearance of dull patches that look ground.

1985, Sergeĭ Aristarkhovich Semenov, Prehistoric Technology: An Experimental Study of the Oldest Tools and Artefacts from Traces of Manufacture and Wear, page 14:

The axial perforation, the handle socket and the quern base are all rough and do not appear ground or polished

2000, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, page 258:

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.

2018, H Glimpel, HJ Lauffer, A Bremstahler, Finishing Tool, In Particular End Milling Cutter, US Patent App. 15/764,739

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