ground, n.

Pronunciation: 

Brit. /ɡraʊnd/

U.S. /ɡraʊnd/

Forms:  OE–ME (15– Scottish) grund, ME–15 grond, (ME gronnde), ME–16 grounde, ME grownd(e, (ME grount, growende, 15 growinde, groune, 16 grown), ME– ground.

Frequency (in current use): 

Origin: A word inherited from Germanic.

Etymology: Common Germanic: Old English grund, strong masculine = Old Frisian, Old Saxon grund (Middle Dutch gront, inflected grond-, Dutch grond), Old High German grunt, krunt (Middle High German grunt, grund-, German gruna), Gothic *grundus (compare grundu-waddjus ground-wall, foundation, afgrundiþa abyss) < Old Germanic *grundu-z < pre-Germanic *ghrn̥tú-s; no cognates outside Germanic are known. The formal equivalent is not found in Old Norse, which has however grund (feminine) (declined like the -i- stems), earth, plain, and a cognate type (Germanic *grunþo- < pre-Germanic ghrn̥to-) in grunn-r, gruð-r (masculine), bottom, grunn-r adjective, shallow, grunn neuter, shoal (Danish grund bottom, shallow, Swedish grund bottom, foundation, ground).

 I. The bottom; the lowest part or downward limit of anything.

†1.

 a. Of the sea, a well, ditch, etc., and of hell; rarely of heaven. (Cf. bottom n. 3) Obsolete.

c825   Vesp. Psalter lxiv. 8   Ðu gedroefes grund [L. fundum] sæs.

OE   Genesis 345   Het hine þære sweartan helle grundes gyman.

c1175   Lamb. Hom. 19   He..alesde us of helle grunde.

c1175   Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 12059   Modiȝnesse. Þatt warrp þe deofell..Inn till þe grund off helle pitt.

c1275   Luue Ron 154 in Old Eng. Misc. 98   Hit is ymston of feor iboren, nys non betere vnder heouene grunde.

1340   R. Rolle Pricke of Conscience 7213   In þe grond of helle dongeoune Þe hevedes of ȝynfulle salle be turned doune.

c1425   Eng. Conq. Irel. 12   He fel doun yn the ground of þe dich.

1483   W. Caxton tr. J. de Voragine Golden Legende 237 b/2   Thangel of our lord plunged them doun in the grounde of the see.

1535   Bible (Coverdale) Job xxxviii. 16   Camest thou euer in to the grounde of the see?

1637   S. Rutherford Lett. (1863) I. 218   Cast Him..into the ground of the Sea, He shall come up again.

†b. Of other things, esp. of a vessel or a wound (cf. bottom n. 1). Also in phrase all to ground: completely, thoroughly. Obsolete.

c1275  (▸?a1200)    Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1978) l. 10732   And duden heom alle clane into þan scipen grunde.

c1275  (▸?a1200)    Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1963) l. 3879   Þer mihten sitten in þon grunde [of the tower] cnihtes sixti hundred.

a1300   K. Horn 1197   Horn dronk of horn a stounde And þrew hys ryng to þe grounde [of the horn].

c1305   J. Iscariot 118 in Early Eng. Poems & Lives Saints (1862) 110   Of oure louerdes god..he stal al to grounde.

a1400   Minor Poems from Vernon MS xxxvii. 814   Þe leche clanseþ þe wounde: Clene in þe ground And leiþ salue a-boue.

c1420   Pallad. on Husb. ix. 153   Decoct in bras yf grauel in the ground Noon leue, is preef that that licour is sound.

c1450   Jacob's Well (1900) 215   Ȝe schul be þe ground of þis laddere in helle, be-cause ȝe be begynners of þat wrong!

a1500   Lancelot of Laik (1870) 2079   His dedly wound god helyth frome the ground.

1636   A. Montgomerie Cherrie & Slae (new ed.) 1362   While we grip it [sc. an ailment] to the ground.

1823   W. Scott St. Ronan's Well I. ix. 224   I ken weel eneugh how a customer looks that's near the grund of the purse.

†c. figurative. Of the heart: (cf. bottom n. and adj. Phrases 1). Obsolete.

c1175   Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 13286   Crist sahh all hiss herrtess grund.

c1290   S.E. Leg. I. 220/19   Þis olde man riȝt of is heorte grounde Al weopinde he hem tolde ȝwat he hadde i-founde.

a1350   in G. L. Brook Harley Lyrics (1968) 56   Sone, y fele þe dedestounde, Þe suert is at myn herte grounde.

c1450   Jacob's Well (1900) 170   In þe bothme, in þe ground, in þe depthe of þin herte.

1535   Bible (Coverdale) Gen. xliii. E   The grounde of his hert was kyndled towarde his brother.

1611   M. Smith in Bible (King James) Transl. Pref. 7   Let vs rather blesse God from the ground of our heart.

1745   J. Wesley Wks. (1872) I. 506   We praised God from the ground of the heart.

 d. Theology.  [representing German grund as used by 14th-cent. mystics, notably Eckhart and Tauler.]  (a) The divine essence or centre of the individual soul, in which mystic union lies.  (b) Godhead as the source of all that is.

a1400   Book of Privy Counselling (1944) 144/19   God, þi grounde & þi purete of spirit.

1865   J. H. Stirling Secret of Hegel I. ii. i. 235   Being is posited as Existence, and the Mediating agency of this Being as the Ground.

1899   W. R. Inge Christian Mysticism i. 7   The curious doctrine which we find in the mystics of the Middle Ages, that there is at ‘the apex of the mind’ a spark which is consubstantial with the uncreated ground of the Deity.

1911   E. Underhill Mysticism iii. 64   The point of contact between man's life and the divine life..is called the Ground of the Soul, the foundation or basal stuff whence springs all spiritual life.

1945   A. Huxley Time must have Stop (new ed.) viii. 92   There was the ultimate all-embracing field—the Brahma of Sankara, the One of Plotinus, the Ground of Eckhart and Boehme.

1945   A. Huxley Time must have Stop (new ed.) xxx. 289   There is a Godhead or Ground, which is the unmanifested principle of all manifestation... The Ground is transcendent and immanent.

1945   A. Huxley Perennial Philos. (1946) ii. 29   The divine Ground of all existence is a spiritual Absolute, ineffable in terms of discursive thought, but..susceptible of being directly experienced.

1949   P. Tillich Shaking of Foundations vi. 47   The God Whom he cannot flee is the Ground of his being.

1950   W. R. Trask tr. J. Bernhart in Theologia Germanica 95   What Plotinus had called the ‘kentron’ (center) of the soul, and Richard of St. Victor the ‘height and inwardness of the spirit’..; what Bernard of Clairvaux called the ‘point of the mind’ (acies mentis), or again the ‘spark’ (scintilla) is now given a variety of German names and is indefatigably discussed and speculated upon. It is called the ‘soul's essence’ (Wesen), ‘soul’ (Gemut),..‘ground’ (Grund)... These concepts are intended to designate that which God and man must have in common if a contact is to be established between them... The thing in which they [sc. individual mystics] agree is always the idea of the mystic function of the ‘ground’ of the soul.

1961   J. Walsh Julian of Norwich's Revelations Divine Love lxii. 168   God..is the Ground; he is the Substance.

1963   J. A. T. Robinson Honest to God iii. 45 (heading)    The Ground of our Being.

 2.

 a. The solid bottom or earth underlying the sea (†or other water). Now only Nautical, esp. in reference to soundings, or in phrase to break ground: to heave the anchor clear of the bottom.

OE   Beowulf 553   Hreo wæron yþa... Me to grunde geteah fah feondscaða.

c1000   Solomon & Saturn 227   Dol bið se ðe gæð on deop wæter, se ðe..mid fotum ne mæg grund geræcan.

c1175   Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 14861   All all swa summ þe sæ wass þær. Dun till þe grund to worrpenn. Swa þatt teȝȝ o þe driȝȝe grund. Wel sæȝhenn openn weȝȝe.

a1300   Cursor Mundi 1840   Þat was no creatur in liue þat moght to grund or reche or riue.

a1300   Cursor Mundi 23198   Stang als men sais es vmstund Sua depe þat þar-on es na grund.

a1400   Seuyn Sages (W.) 885   To a fische-pole he come..He lepe in and sanke to gronde.

c1400   Mandeville's Trav. (Roxb.) xxxiii. 148   As þai saile þai may..see þe ground of þe see.

c1450   Jacob's Well (1900) 75   Caste out of þi pytt þe stynkyng wose of pride, tyl þou fynde a syker ground & a clene.

c1485   Digby Myst. (1882) iii. 1395   Lett fall an ankyr to grownd!

a1568   in J. Cranstoun Satirical Poems Reformation (1891) I. xlvi. 393   Gif ȝe can nocht get the grund, Steir be the compas.

1598   W. Shakespeare Henry IV, Pt. 1 i. iii. 202   Diue into the bottome of the deepe, Where fadome line could neuer touch the ground.

1600   in R. Hakluyt Princ. Navigations (new ed.) III. 190   There is good ground and ankorage here: and you shall ride in three fathom water.

1611   G. Markham Countrey Contentm. i. xiv. 93   If you Angle for him [Trout] at the ground.. the Menow is a good bayte.

1698   J. Fryer New Acct. E.-India & Persia 1   The Ship then breaking Ground from Graves-End, to fall down to the Buoy in the Nore.

1712   W. Rogers Cruising Voy. 50   We kept continual Soundings, and had always Ground from one League to ten off the Shore, from 20 to 50 Fathom Water.

1752   W. Beawes Lex Mercatoria 116   If..the ship breaks ground, and arrives at her port.

1782   Log of Albemarle in Ld. Nelson Dispatches & Lett. (1846) VII. p. v   With this depth and ground you may be sure you are without the Capes.

1807   J. Johnson Oriental Voy. 220   On the 5th the men of war..broke ground, and steered past.

1867   W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor's Word-bk.    To strike ground, to obtain soundings.

figurative.

1781   C. Johnstone Hist. John Juniper I. 80   His readers..may have flattered themselves with hope of finding ground at last, after the pains of diving so deep for it.

 b. The bottom at a point where the water becomes too shallow for a vessel, etc. to float. to take (the) ground: to run ashore, to strand. to smell the ground (see quot. 1875).

1600   W. Shakespeare Henry IV, Pt. 2 iv. i. 17   Thus do the hopes we haue in him, touch ground, And dash themselues to peeces.  

1830   C. Lyell Princ. Geol. I. 299   These masses [icebergs] may sometimes take the ground in great numbers.

1875   E. FitzGerald Lett. (1889) I. 374   I..fancy that I begin to ‘smell the Ground’, as Sailors say of the Ship that slackens speed as the Water shallows under her.

1880   Times 4 Aug. 12/4   The Laine, Russian barque,..took the ground on the Somersetshire side.

1893   R. L. Stevenson Catriona Summary p. viii   The Covenant took ground and sank off the coast of Mull.

1893   ‘Q’ Delectable Duchy 295   Miss..Lear heard her brother's boat take ground on the narrow beach.

†c. on ground = aground adv. to set (also run) on ground: figurative to puzzle, nonplus (a person). Cf. sense 9b.

1600   W. Shakespeare Henry IV, Pt. 2 iv. iii. 40   Like a whale on ground .  

1601   L. Andrewes Serm. (1843) V. 127   The Pharisees and Sadducees had no further end but to set Him on ground, and so to expose him to the contempt of the people.

a1642   W. Monson Naval Tracts (1704) vi. 522/1   The English..may come on Ground.

1642   D. Rogers Naaman 442   Will God heale, that man may be set on ground and bee convinced of his owne impotency.

1659   J. Arrowsmith Armilla Catechetica 138   Whilest others run themselves on ground, and dispute it till their understandings be nonplust.

1667   London Gaz. No. 217/4   The Ship called the Van Hoorn..is on ground without the mouth of the Texell.

 3.

 a. In plural. The particles deposited by a liquid in the bottom of the vessel containing it; dregs, lees. †Also singular: a residuum, sediment.

a1340   R. Rolle Psalter lxiv. 9   Ill men sall drynke þe grundis of þe chalice.

c1450   Middle Eng. Med. Bk. (Heinrich) 93   Streyne hit wel þorouȝ a caneuas, and do awey þe groundes of þe roses.

1601   P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World II. 159   The grounds or dregs of the black oile oliue.

1625   J. Hart Anat. Urines ii. viii. 98   Whersoeuer there is a swim..there is also a ground or residence.

1742   W. Ellis London & Country Brewer (ed. 4) I. 53   The unwholesome Settlements or Grounds of the Beer.

1775   R. B. Sheridan St. Patrick's Day ii. iv   Just. Did you perceive anything in my chocolate cup..? Ser. Nothing,..unless it was a little grounds.

1824   T. B. Macaulay Misc. Writings (1860) I. 141   [Telling fortunes] neither from the lines of a hand, nor the grounds of a teacup.

1860   All Year Round 11 Feb. 367   Cups of smoking black coffee (half grounds as the Turks drink it).

figurative.

1629   S. Rutherford Lett. (1863) I. 44   Fulfil with joy the remnant of the grounds and remainders of the afflictions of Christ in your body.

1642   J. Hales Tract conc. Schisme 4   If so be you be animo defæcato, if you have cleared your selfe from froath and grownes.

1672   A. Marvell Rehearsal Transpros'd i. 185   How much another thing it is to hear him speak that hath cleared himself from froth and growns.

 b. Refuse (of meal, wool, etc.). rare.

1629   G. Chapman tr. Juvenal Fifth Satyre in Iustification Nero 12   The mustiest grounds Of Barly-griest (bak'd purposely for hounds).

1653   I. Walton Compl. Angler v. 117   You must be sure you want not..the Peacocks feather, and grounds of such wool and crewel as will make the Grasshopper.  

1808   J. Jamieson Etymol. Dict. Sc. Lang.   Grounds, the refuse of flax, left in dressing it.

 II. Base, foundation.

†4.

 a. The solid base or foundation on which an edifice or other structure is raised. In early use plural in the same sense (cf. foundations). Obsolete.

c950   Lindisf. Gosp. Luke vi. 48   Gelic is [he] ðæm menn timbrende hus seðe delfæð..& gesette ða grundas [L. fundamenta] ofer carr vel stan.

c950   Lindisf. Gosp. Luke xiv. 29.  

a1300   E.E. Psalter xvii. 8   Groundes ofe hilles todreued are.

a1300   E.E. Psalter xvii. 16   Groundes ofe ertheli werlde vn-hiled are.

a1300   Cursor Mundi 128   For þi þat na werc may stand Wit-outen grundwall to be lastand, Þar for þis werc sal I fund Apon a selcuth stedfast grund.

1382   Bible (Wycliffite, E.V.) Ezra v. 16   Thilke Zazabazar cam, and sette the groundis of the temple of God in Jerusalem.

1423   Kingis Quair cxxx   On him traist and call, That corner-stone and ground is of the wall.

1535   Bible (Coverdale) 1 Kings vi. 15   Salomon..buylded the walles..from the grounde of ye house vnto the rofe.

1581   in J. Cranstoun Satirical Poems Reformation (1891) I. xliv. 35   As ȝour maisters grund is laid, Lyk do the vallis and bigging be.

1634   T. Herbert Relation Some Yeares Trauaile 57   There be but nineteene standing,..howbeit the ruines and ground of fourescore more, are yet visible.

c1720   N. Dubois & G. Leoni tr. A. Palladio Architecture III. viii. 18   The beams which make the ground or bottom of the Bridge.

 b. The floor.

1847   Webster's Amer. Dict. Eng. Lang.   Ground, a floor or pavement.

1900   Eng. Dial. Dict.   Put the baby an the ground and let 'er craal.

1921   E. O'Neill Emperor Jones (1925) i. 7 (stage direct.)    Woman (seeing the uselessness of struggling, gives way to frantic terror, and sinks to the ground).

1937   A. Christie Murder in Mews i. 14   We.. forced the door open. Mrs. Allen was lying in a heap on the ground shot through the head.

1939   J. Joyce Finnegans Wake 452   Pricking up ears to my phono on the ground and picking up airs from th'other over th'ether.

 5. In various immaterial applications.

 a. That on which a system, work, institution, art, or condition of things, is founded; the basis, foundation. Now somewhat rare.

1340   R. Rolle Pricke of Conscience 209   Mekenes, Þat es grund of al vertus..On whilk al vertus may be sette fast.

c1374   G. Chaucer Troilus & Criseyde ii. 793 (842)   As he þat is þe welle of worþinesse Of trouþe ground, myrour of goodlyhed.

a1400  (▸a1325)    Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) l. 19307   Þat was to strenght þair trout[h] in grund.

1423   Kingis Quair vi   And so the vertew of his ȝouth before Was in his age the ground of his delytis.

a1483   Liber Niger in Coll. Ordinances Royal Househ. (1790) 18   He ordeyned his groundes for household so sure that his greete hospitalitie dayly stode wurshypfully without decay xxxiii yeres.

▸ ?a1513   W. Dunbar Poems (1998) I. 150   Cuvatyce, Rute of all evill and grund of vyce.

1523   J. Fitzherbert Bk. Surueyeng Prol. sig. B3   For a grounde of this treatyse..I do take an olde statute named Extenta manerii, as a principall grounde therof.

c1540  (▸?a1400)    Destr. Troy Prol. 80   How þe groundes first grew..Bothe of torfer and tene þat hom tide aftur.

1596   E. Spenser Second Pt. Faerie Queene vi. i. sig. Z3v   Which of all goodly manners is the ground, And roote of ciuill conuersation.  

1611   M. Smith in Bible (King James) Transl. Pref. 4   The Edition of the Seuentie..was vsed by the Greeke fathers for the ground and foundation of their Commentaries.

1653   I. Walton Compl. Angler iv. 110   These and the May-fly are the ground of all fly-Angling.  

1654   J. Playford Breefe Introd. Skill Musick 1   The Gam-ut is the Ground and Foundation of all Musick.

1867   F. D. Maurice Patriarchs & Law-givers (1877) x. 198   The ground of the national existence was laid in sacrifice.

1870   W. S. Jevons Elem. Lessons Logic xxvi. 219   Upon a similar ground rests all the vast body of certain knowledge.

†b. A fundamental principle; (also in plural) the elements or rudiments of any study or branch of knowledge. Obsolete.

1528–30   tr. T. Littleton Tenures (new ed.) f. i   There is a grounde in lawe, that inherytaunce may..nat lynyally assende.

?1530   St. German's Dyaloge in Englysshe Introd. f. iiv   I wyll gladly shewe the as me thynkyth what be the groundes of the lawe of Englande.

1599   J. Davies Nosce Teipsum 14   Marrying diuerse principles and grounds, Out of their match a true Conclusion brings.

1605   F. Bacon Of Aduancem. Learning ii. sig. Aa1v   Let this ground therefore be layd, that [etc.] .  

1625   F. Bacon Ess. (new ed.) xii. 63   Men that vndertake great Cures..but want the Grounds of Science.

1648   T. Gage Eng.-Amer. xx. 160   And counselled me to learn the..language, (whereof I had already got some grounds).

1708   Chamberlayne's Magnæ Britanniæ Notitia (1743) ii. iii. x. 434   They have likewise a chaplain to instruct them in the grounds of learning.

1762   S. Foote Orators i. 10   Tho' he is the Poitier who teaches you the step and the grounds; yet I am the Gallini who gives you the air, and the grace of the minuet.

 c. A circumstance on which an opinion, inference, argument, statement, or claim is founded, or which has given rise to an action, procedure, or mental feeling; a reason, motive. Often with additional implication: a valid reason, justifying motive, or what is alleged as such. on the ground of: by reason of (some circumstance alleged in justification of a procedure). on public (also religious, etc.) grounds: for reasons of the nature specified.

c1275  (▸?a1200)    Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1963) l. 1594   Al þis ilka ich wulle don. Iseid ich habbe þene grund.

c1374   G. Chaucer Compl. Mars 160–3   The grounde an cause of al my peyn..I wol reherse not for to haue redresse But to declare my grounde of heuynesse.

1395   Remonstr. Rom. Corrup. (1851) 20   Ambrose and Crisostom witnessen, with greet ground of holi writ and opin resoun, that confessioun to God sufficith to saluacioun.

1467   in Manners & Househ. Expenses Eng. (1841) 171   He..sawe his growende scholde be preved nowte, thanne he mad a new mater.

1535   Bible (Coverdale) Isa. xli. C   Stonde at youre cause (saieth the Lorde) and bringe forth youre strongest grounde.

1599   W. Shakespeare Romeo & Juliet v. iii. 179   The true ground of all these piteous woes.  

1599   H. Buttes Dyets Dry Dinner sig. E3   Chestnut, Chastnut: say some. I knowe not upon what ground.

1605   S. V. in R. Verstegan Restit. Decayed Intelligence Commend. Verses   To gratifie that nation is his ground To whome he thinks his best endeuours bound.

1642   T. Fuller Holy State iv. xx. 343   The beginning of a rumour is sometimes all the ground thereof.

1657   P. Henry Diaries & Lett. (1882) 42   Hee refus'd; his grounds I know not.

1662   E. Stillingfleet Origines Sacræ ii. iii. §6   Then all former ages have believed without sufficient ground for faith.

a1693   M. Bruce Good News in Evil Times (1708) 18   A great ground of Gladness.

1698   J. Fryer New Acct. E.-India & Persia 340   On which ground it is, that their best Cities seldom have splendid Edifices..from..private Hands.

a1701   H. Maundrell Journey Aleppo to Jerusalem (1703) 124   The ground, and reason of this tradition, I could not learn.

1729   W. Law Serious Call xi. 167   Let but any complaining, disquieted man tell you the ground of his uneasiness.

1775   R. B. Sheridan Rivals ii. i   What grounds for apprehension?

1790   E. Burke Refl. Revol. in France 19   There is ground enough for the opinion that all the kingdoms of Europe were, at a remote period, elective.  

1794   R. B. Sheridan Duenna (new ed.) i. 18   That is to be the ground of my dismission.

1796   E. Burke Two Lett. Peace Regicide Directory France i. 130   I thought the insolent, unprovoked aggression..a good ground of war.

1856   J. A. Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) I. ii. 134   His desire was publicly urged on public grounds, and..thus only, the pope was at liberty to consider it.

1859   J. S. Mill On Liberty ii. 67   He has no ground for preferring either opinion.

1868   J. H. Blunt Reformation Church of Eng. I. 283   The modern usurer will on such grounds leave his money to a hospital.

1871   B. Jowett tr. Plato Dialogues I. 223   Thus all ground of offence is taken away.

1876   W. E. Gladstone Homeric Synchronism 57   I am unable to perceive the grounds of the assumption.

1882   J. H. Blunt Reformation Church of Eng. II. 293   Ferrar was deprived..on the ground of his marriage.

1883   C. J. Wills In Land of Lion & Sun 109   Whether or no this legend had any ground I cannot say.

1895   F. Hall Two Trifles iii   My grounds for doing so shall soon be stated explicitly.

 6. The foundation or substratum on which other parts are overlaid, or on which they rest for support or display. In various technical uses:

 a. The chief or underlying part in a composite textile fabric; a piece of cloth used as a basis for embroidery or decoration. In Lace-making: the meshes upon which the pattern is worked.

c1386   G. Chaucer Prol. 453   Hir couerchiefs ful fyne weren of ground I dorste swere they weyeden ten pound.

1480   Wardrobe Accts. Edward IV in N. H. Nicolas Privy Purse Expenses Elizabeth of York (1830) 116   Cloth of gold broched upon satyn ground.

1494   Act 11 Hen. VII c. 27   They pluck off both the Nap and Cotton of the same Fustians, and break commonly both the Ground and Threads in sunder.

1668   J. Dryden Secret-love iii. i. 25   No mortal hand so ignorant is found To weave course work upon a precious ground.

1722   London Gaz. No. 6068/8   A Suit of Double Ground, yellow and white, lined with a yellow Mantua Silk.

1781   R. B. Sheridan Critic i. i   Your occasional tropes and flowers suit the general coarseness of your style as tambour sprigs would a ground of linsey-woolsey.

1882   S. F. A. Caulfeild & B. C. Saward Dict. Needlework 151/1   Devonia Ground. A ground..used in Duchesse lace, and as a variety when making Honiton lace.

 b. Any material surface, natural or prepared, which is taken as a basis for working upon: esp. in painting or decorative art, a main surface or first coating of colour, serving as a support for other colours or a background for designs; the prevailing or principal colour of any object, picture, etc.; that portion of a surface which is not coloured, decorated, or operated upon. Also in plural.

1398   J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomew de Glanville De Proprietatibus Rerum (1495) xix. xi. 871   The meane coloures ben groundyd in none other colour better than in whyte, and the more whyte the grounde is the faster the colour cleuyth.

1594   W. Shakespeare Lucrece sig. H2v   My sable ground of sinne I will not paint.  

1601   P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World II. 621   The rest had need of a ground of Latton foile to giue them a lustre.

1625   N. Carpenter Geogr. Delineated i. vii. 168   In the Plaine-Chart..the Ground is the space or plat-forme wherein the Lines are to be inscribed.

1687   A. Lovell tr. J. de Thévenot Trav. into Levant i. 200   All the Wall is painted in lovely Mosaick Work of Green, upon a Ground of fine Gold.

1740   G. Smith tr. Laboratory (rev. ed.) xi. 236   When you begin to work, lay a thick ground against the ceiling or wall, with plaister.

1820   W. Scott Monastery II. iv. 148   The gems, being relieved and set off by the darker and more grave ground of the stuff, show like stars.

1839   A. Ure Dict. Arts 921   Laying the grounds [of wall-paper] is done with earthy colours or coloured lakes thickened with size, and applied with brushes.

1860   J. Ruskin Mod. Painters V. 124   Seen in broken flakes on a deep purple ground of heavier cloud beyond.

1871   B. Jowett in tr. Plato Dialogues II. 43   Dyers first prepare the white ground and then lay on the dye of purple.

figurative.

1633   S. Marmion Fine Compan. i. vii, in Dram. Wks. (1875) 124   A man cannot discern the ground of their discourse for oaths.

1828   Lights & Shades Eng. Life II. 157   Cockneyism is a ground of native shallowness, mounted with pertness and conceit.

†c. Music. The plainsong or melody on which a descant is raised. Also: = ground-bass n. at Compounds 2a. Obsolete.

1592   R. Dallington tr. F. Colonna Hypnerotomachia f. 19   A cunning Musition, who hauing deuised his plaine grounde in right measure [etc.].

1596   Raigne of Edward III sig. C1v   Ah what a world of descant makes my soule, Vpon this voluntarie ground of loue.  

1597   W. Shakespeare Richard III iii. vii. 49   For on that ground Ile build a holy descant.  

a1637   B. Jonson Kings Entertainm. at Welbeck sig. Oo1 in Wks. (1640) III   Welcome is all our Song, is all our sound, The Treble part, the Tenor, and the Ground.

1670   S. Wilson Lassels's Voy. Italy (new ed.) ii. 310   An vntouched organ vnderneath the hill, playes à soft ground to the Muses instruments.

1719   I. Watts Let God the Father in Doxol.   Sinners from his free Love derive The Ground of all their Songs.

1786   T. Busby Compl. Dict. Music   Ground, the name given to a composition in which the bass, consisting of a few bars of independent notes, is perpetually repeated to a continually varying melody: as in Purcel's Ground, Pepusch's Ground, etc.

 d. Etching. (See quots. 18371, 18372.) Also etching-ground. Cf. German ätzgrund.

1728   E. Chambers Cycl.   Ground, in Etching, is a gummous Composition, smeared over the Surface of the Metal to be etch'd; to prevent the Aqua Fortis from eating, or having effect, except in Places where this Ground is cut thro', or pared off, with the Points of Needles.

?1790   J. Imison Curious & Misc. Articles (new ed.) 51 in School of Arts (ed. 2)    Take a copper plate prepared as before..lay the etching ground upon it, and etch the outlines of your design.

1821   W. M. Craig Lect. Drawing vii. 386   This ground must be made up into small balls.

1834   Penny Cycl. II. 203/1   [article Aquatinta] He..formed a granulated surface on the plate, usually called a ground.

1837   Penny Cycl. IX. 441   This etching-ground is a substance composed of wax, asphaltum, gum-mastic, resin, etc... The laying of the ground, as it is called, is thus effected [etc.].

1837   Penny Cycl. IX. 442   The parts which are bitten-in enough are now to be covered with what is called stopping-ground, which is a mixture of lamp-black and Venice turpentine.

1885   Chemist's Circular   Holding the plate perfectly level, pour on the centre as much of the Liquid Ground as will freely flow over the entire surface.

 e. Carpentry. (See quots.) Usually in plural.

1823   P. Nicholson New Pract. Builder 225   Grounds.—Pieces of wood concealed in a wall, to which the facings or finishings are attached.

1825   ‘J. Nicholson’ Operative Mechanic 593   Ground, or boxing-stile, grooved to receive the plastering.

1847   A. C. Smeaton Builder's Pocket Man. (new ed.) 248   Grounds.—Those pieces of wood imbedded in the plastering of walls, to which skirting and other joiner's finishings are attached.

1876   Encycl. Brit. IV. 492   Where the plasterer's work joins the grounds, they should have a small groove ploughed in the edge to form a key for the plaster.

†f. In plural. (See quots.) Obsolete.

1664   J. Evelyn Sylva (1729) i. xvii. 79   Of the whitest part of the old Wood..is made the Grounds of our effeminate farined Gallants Sweet Powder.

1699   B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew   Chalk, used in Powder by the Perfumers to mix with their Grounds.

1699   B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew   Grounds, unscented Hair Powder, made of Starch or Rice.

†7. The fundamental constituent or the essential part of any thing. Obsolete.

1580   J. Frampton tr. N. Monardes Bk. Medicines agaynst Venome in Ioyfull Newes (new ed.) f. 123v   Taking away the grounde, and euill qualitie, that the venomes doe infuse into the bodies.

1607   E. Topsell Hist. Foure-footed Beastes 553   Our muske is compounded of diuers things, the ground whereof is the bloud of a little beast.

1634   T. Herbert Relation Some Yeares Trauaile 149   Though the meat be particoloured, or party named. Yet the ground and meate is Pelo and no other.

1740   H. Bracken Farriery Improv'd (ed. 2) II. i. 14   The Ground of the Eye (as they call it) should be large and full... What they mean by the Ground of the Eye, is the Pupil or Hole thro' the Iris and Uvea.

 III. The surface of the earth, or a part of it.

 8.

 a. The earth regarded as the surface upon which man and his surroundings naturally rest or move; frequently in prepositional phrases, as along (also on, to) the ground (†formerly also without the article), above (also under) ground.

971   Blickl. Hom. 221   Ða eodan hie eft to ðæm tune, & þæt gild gebræcan & gefyldan eal oþ grund.

OE   Beowulf 2294   Hordweard sohte georne æfter grunde, wolde guman findan.

c1175   Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 9285   Illc an treo þatt..Ne bereþþ nohht god wasstme Shall bi þe grund beon hæwenn upp.

1297   R. Gloucester's Chron. (Rolls) 2768   Wat is binuþe þe gronde, þat makeþ þat þe fondement ne stont none stounde.

a1325  (▸c1250)    Gen. & Exod. (1968) l. 2640   Ðe child it warp dun to de [read ðe] grund.

1340   Ayenbite (1866) 246   Ase þet trau þet is ykarked mid frut, þe more hit bouȝ to þe grunde.

c1386   G. Chaucer Prioress's Tale 223   He fil al plat vp on the grounde.

c1430   Syr Gener. (Roxb.) 8738   Oon gaf him on the ere Such a clap with his fist That he thoo the ground kyst.

1488  (▸c1478)    Hary Actis & Deidis Schir William Wallace (Adv.) (1968–9) vi. l. 10   In Aperill, quhen cleithit is..The abill ground be wyrking off natur.

1513   G. Douglas in tr. Virgil Æneid xii. Prol. 29   On the fertill skyrt lappis of the ground.

1579   E. Spenser Shepheardes Cal. June 6   The simple ayre, the gentle warbling wynde..The grassye ground with daintye Daysies dight.

1590   E. Spenser Faerie Queene iii. xii. sig. Oo6   To ground He fell halfe dead.

a1604   M. Hanmer Chron. Ireland 86 in J. Ware Two Hist. Ireland (1633)    If any be much under grownd, the dampnesse of the earth takes away their lively colour.

1698   J. Fryer New Acct. E.-India & Persia 43   Were the City again in the hands of the Moors, or even with the Ground, it were better for us.

1772   G. White Let. 12 Apr. in Nat. Hist. Selborne (1789) 149   After I left Sussex the tortoise retired into the ground under the hepatica.

1828   W. Scott Fair Maid of Perth ii, in Chron. Canongate 2nd Ser. II. 61   He looked on the ground while he answered her.

1888   J. McCarthy & R. C. Praed Ladies' Gallery II. xi. 214   He stumbled..and I came to the ground with him.

 b. figurative in †to bring to the ground: to cast down, overthrow, overcome, subdue; to come (also go) to the ground: to be overcome; to perish; so to be dashed to the ground (of hopes); down to the ground: completely, thoroughly, in every respect (colloquial); from the ground up (colloquial, originally U.S.), completely, entirely; ‘down to the ground’; to get off the ground, to make a successful start; on the ground, in situ, on the spot. See also to fall to the ground at fall v. Phrases 1d.

c1175   Ormulum (Burchfield transcript) l. 11773   Þatt illke wise. þatt adam. I paradys wass fandedd. & brohht to grund.

1297   R. Gloucester's Chron. (Rolls) 1292   Þis lond was ibroȝt þoru treson verst to grounde.

1297   R. Gloucester's Chron. (Rolls) 7495   Þus lo þe englisse folc vor noȝt to grounde com.

c1330   R. Mannyng Chron. Wace (Rolls) 9888   Arthur..preyed hym of help a stounde, Or elles he scholde go to grounde.

c1540  (▸?a1400)    Destr. Troy 9342   Hit greuys me full gretly, & to ground brynges.

1579   W. Fulke Heskins Parl. Repealed in D. Heskins Ouerthrowne 411   It must needes fall to the ground.

1587   Sir P. Sidney & A. Golding tr. P. de Mornay Trewnesse Christian Relig. xiv. 252   Let such vanities passe, and come to the ground.

1640   C. Harvey Church-gate iii   He holds us up, whilst in him we are found: If once we fall from him, we go to ground.

1762   H. Walpole Vertue's Anecd. Painting II. ii. 62   It fell to the ground with the rest of the King's plans and attempts.

1849   E. E. Napier Excursions Southern Afr. II. 5   These poor fellows' hopes were suddenly dashed to the ground.

1856   R. W. Emerson Eng. Traits v. 82   The strong survived, the weaker went to the ground.

1859   County Courts Chron. 1 Nov. 148/3   Barring the blind eye and the broken knees, I'll warrant the horse to suit you down to the ground.

1867   R. Broughton Cometh up as Flower II. vii. 104   Suited me down to the ground.

1878   M. E. Braddon Cloven Foot xlv   Some sea-coast city in South America would suit me down to the ground.

1889   T. A. Trollope What I Remember III. 289   The occupation..suited my tastes and habits ‘down to the ground’, as the modern slang phrase has it.

1894   G. Du Maurier Trilby (1895) 421   He looks as if he could be trusted down to the ground.

1895   Congress. Rec. 6 Feb. App. 207/1   There never has been a time that a democratic administration has not been American from the ground up.

1910   W. M. Raine Bucky O'Connor 52   We suited each other from the ground up.

1960   Guardian 25 Nov. 15/1   On-the-ground investigations.

1961   New Statesman 28 July 129/3   Intended as a half-way point of the Festival, at which audience and platform might fruitfully interact, it never got off the ground.

1963   Listener 10 Jan. 59/2   There is no longer any good reason why the young..American writer should undergo a European apprenticeship unless it be to satisfy his curiosity or to watch the operations of another literature on the ground.

1969   Listener 3 Apr. 469/1   It soon became evident..that the history of contemporary music required reconsidering from the ground up.

1969   Guardian 4 July 5/5   If thefts continue, the future plans for the Crewe to Glasgow [railway] line can never really get off the ground.

 c. Regarded as the place of burial. above ground: unburied, alive. to bring (also come) to the ground (now only dialect): to bury, be buried.

c1400   Siege Troy 1334 in Archiv f. das Studium der Neueren Sprachen 72 44   So doughty a body..That soo lowe is leyd in þe ground.

?c1430   St. Greg. Trental in Tundale's Vis. (1843) 79   Sone to the gronde the con hor bere bryng And beryd hor.

1570   in S. Tymms Wills & Inventories Bury St. Edmunds (1850) 157   To see me honestly brought to the grownde.

1611   Bible (King James) Gen. iii. 19.  

a1616   W. Shakespeare Coriolanus (1623) iv. i. 52   While I remaine aboue the ground, you shall Heare from me still.  

1694   L. Echard tr. Plautus Rudens iv. vii, in tr. Plautus Comedies 208   I'll find out my Master, if he be above Ground, and bring him t'ye.

1858   N. Hawthorne Fr. & Ital. Jrnls. (1872) I. 19   Rachel, who died last week, and is still above ground.

1877   L. J. Jennings Field Paths 28   Poor thing! it was only fourteen months afore she came to the ground.

 d. The portion of the earth's surface on which a person or thing stands or moves; often figurative in to cut the ground from under one (or one's feet).

c1530   Interl. Beauties Women A vi   Yet worship I the ground that thou gost on.

1809   B. H. Malkin tr. A. R. Le Sage Adventures Gil Blas II. iv. i. 5   I took all possible pains to feel the ground under my feet, and to study the characters of the whole household.

1855   A. Trollope Warden xi. 183   The ground was cut from under her on every side.

1869   A. Trollope He knew he was Right I. lxiii. 115   Why should you have cut the ground away from your feet in that way?

1938   B. Lunn in ‘H. Kingsmill’ Eng. Genius 205   The Presbyterian divines were maddened by answers which cut the ground from institutional religion.

1962   Christian Cent. 18 July 886/2   In short, Veterum Sapientia has actually succeeded in cutting the ground from under the feet of the exponents of a living liturgy.

†e. The bare floor which constituted the pit of a theatre. Obsolete.

1631   B. Jonson Bartholmew Fayre Induct. sig. A4v in Wks. II   The vnderstanding Gentlemen o' the ground.

 f. Fox-hunting. (to run) to ground: into a burrow or hole in the ground, ‘to earth’; cf. run v. Phrases 3g. Also to lie at ground. to go to ground: also said of a dog. Also in other phrases, and figurative (of a person), to withdraw from public notice and live quietly or ‘lie low’.to run into the ground: see run v. Phrases 3g.

1797   Monthly Mag. 3 246   They soon found a fox, who..saved himself by running to ground.

1801   W. B. Daniel Rural Sports I. 90   In deep Snow, Foxes will lie at ground.

1801   W. B. Daniel Rural Sports I. 91   When a Fox goes to ground, after a long chase..With respect to the digging of Foxes which hounds run to ground.

1860   G. D. Prentice Prenticeana 175   A Party of our friends..chased a fox thirty-six hours. They actually ‘ran the thing into the ground’.

1871   H. B. Stowe My Wife & I ix. 93   Show me up the weak points of those reformers; raise a laugh at those temperance men,—those religionists, who, like all us poor human trash, are running religion, and morals, and progress into the ground.

1900   Daily News 23 Oct. 6/2   The British infantrymen watched the race for shelter, their sporting spirit rising..above all racial hatred, and hailing with a ‘gone to ground’ whoop the final disappearance of the gun.

1905   Loder-Symonds & Crowdy Hist. Old Berks Hunt xv. 292   Hatford. Gorse, where they soon marked him [the fox] to ground.

1920   A. C. Smith Dog 18   Strictly speaking..Airedales and bull terriers should not be classified among the terriers, both being much too big to go to ground.

1925   Times 7 Jan. 5/6   Sticking to their fox, the pace continued good to Chesterton, where he was marked to ground.

1930   ‘Sapper’ Finger of Fate 265   It so happens that on occasions members of the fraternity [sc. snakes] go to ground in the bunches of fruit as they lie stacked beside the railway line.

1931   Our Dogs 23 Oct. 292/2   Working Terrier Dog..goes to ground to fox or badger, and stays.

1964   Ann. Reg. 1963 326   The four men ‘went to ground’, probably in Johannesburg.

1968   K. Weatherly Roo Shooter 39   When they found where a fox had been caught they would track it, sometimes for miles, and shoot it, but often the fox would go to ground and another trap was lost.

1968   Times 11 May 4/6   They are looking for a suburban villa where they can go to ground.

 9.

†a. The earth as contrasted with heaven. Chiefly in on (the) ground. (In later use perhaps not different from sense 8.) Obsolete.

a1000   Hymns (Gr.) ix. 39   And we men cweðað on grunde her.

1362   W. Langland Piers Plowman A. ix. 52   God saue þe from mischaunce, And ȝiue þe grace vppon grounde, In good lyf to ende.

a1400–50   Alexander 1964   All þe gracieux goddez þat þe ground viseten All er vndir my obedience.

a1500  (▸a1460)    Towneley Plays (1994) I. xvi. 201   Ther goys none on grownde That has sich a wyght.

a1616   W. Shakespeare Cymbeline (1623) v. vi. 146   A Nobler Sir, ne're liu'd 'Twixt sky and ground .  

1631   B. Jonson Divell is Asse iv. iv. 135 in Wks. II   There's not a finer Officer goes on ground.

1742   W. Shenstone School-mistress viii   And think, no doubt, she been the greatest Wight on Ground.

1883   R. W. Dixon Mano iii. iii. 123   The truest gentleman that is on ground.

†b. The earth as distinguished from the sea; the dry land. to lay on dry ground: to floor, gravel (cf. sense 2c). Obsolete.

OE   Andreas (1932) 747   Ge mon cigað godes ece bearn, þone þe grund ond sund, heofon ond eorðan ond hreo wægas, salte sæstreamas ond swegluppe amearcode mundum sinum.

a1300   K. Horn 142   Of schip þe gon fonde An sette fot on grunde.

?1520   J. Rastell Nature .iiii. Element sig. Cviij   But sir if that aman sayle farre Upon the see wyll than that starre Do there as on the grounde.

1590   E. Spenser Faerie Queene i. iii. sig. C6   The glad marchant, that does vew from ground His ship far come.

1599   T. Nashe Lenten Stuffe 50   Who this king should bee, beshackled theyr wits, and layd them a dry ground euery one.

?1614   W. Drummond Song: It Autumne was in Poems   Can not beleeue..That other Elements be to be found Than is the Water and this Ball of Ground.

1653   H. Cogan tr. F. M. Pinto Voy. & Adventures xix. 67   Then we unladed all her furniture..and set her on ground for to caulk her.

1697   J. Dryden tr. Virgil Æneis x, in tr. Virgil Wks. 526   Too late young Turnus the Delusion found, Far on the Sea, still making from the Ground.

 10. With a and plural.

†a. A region, land, country. Obsolete. rare.

OE   Widsith 136   Swa scriþende gesceapum hweorfað gleomen gumena geond grunda fela.

OE   Beowulf 2073   Heofones gim glad ofer grundas.

c1436   Libel Eng. Policy in Pol. Poems (Rolls) II. 188   In alle Cristendome Ys no grounde ne lond to Yreland lyche, So large, so gode.

c1436   Libel Eng. Policy in Pol. Poems (Rolls) II. 191   Kepe welle that grounde [Wales].

1609   B. Jonson Case is Alterd i. sig. A2v   Though I haue no learning, yet I honour a scholer in any ground of the earth sir.  

†b. A piece or parcel of land. Obsolete.

1548   N. Udall et al. tr. Erasmus Paraphr. Newe Test. I. Matt. xxvii. 7   And with that moneye they bought a ground of a certayne potter for godlye vses.

1565   T. Cooper Thesaurus   Arborum contemplatione fundum comparare, to bye a grounde for the trees that is in it.

1733   J. Tull Horse-hoing Husbandry vi. 23   When Part of a Ground has been better Till'd than the rest [etc.].

 c. In plural. An enclosed portion of land of considerable extent surrounding or attached to a dwelling-house or other building, serving chiefly for ornament or recreation. †Formerly in more general sense: = lands, fields.

a1500  (▸a1460)    Towneley Plays (1994) I. xvi. 194   Markys, rentys, and powndys, Greatt castels and groundys.

1538   A. Fitzherbert Newe Bk. Justyces Peas 158 b   No person shall kepe..in his owne proper landes, nor in the possession, londes or groundes of any other..aboue the nombre of two thousande Shepe at one tyme.

a1616   W. Shakespeare Henry VI, Pt. 2 (1623) iv. ix. 33   Like a Theefe to come to rob my grounds: Climbing my walles inspight of me the Owner.  

1678   J. Bunyan Pilgrim's Progress 184   Giant Despair..caught Christian and Hopeful asleep in his grounds .  

1697   J. Dryden tr. Virgil Georgics i, in tr. Virgil Wks. 53   His [labours] who plows across the furrow'd Grounds .  

1697   J. Dryden tr. Virgil Georgics i, in tr. Virgil Wks. 55   No..Marks nor Bounds Distinguish'd Acres of litigious Grounds .  

1751   S. Johnson Rambler No. 161. ⁋2   Till he has learned the history of his grounds.

1806   J. Beresford Miseries Human Life I. ii. 31   After having cut down every foot of grass upon your grounds.

1836   C. Dickens Pickwick Papers (1837) xix. 195   The Captain's house was a villa, and his land ‘grounds’, and it was all very high, and mighty, and great.

1855   W. H. Prescott Hist. Reign Philip II of Spain I. ii. iv. 465   Extensive grounds were also laid out around the palace, and a park was formed.

 11.

 a. Area or distance on the face of the earth. (Usually without article, and most commonly depending on a word implying extent or partition.) Also figurative (cf. senses 4, 5).

?1523   J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry f. viii   An acre of grounde..as moch grounde.

c1540  (▸?a1400)    Destr. Troy 12556   Naules..hade londes full long, & of leue brede, And the grettist of grise, of gronnde & of pepull.

1576   A. Fleming Panoplie Epist. Ep. Ded. sig. ¶iijv   Anon, haueing gone a litle ground, mine eyes were fead with most delectable appearaunces.

1600   W. Shakespeare Merchant of Venice ii. ii. 99   I will not rest till I haue runne some ground .  

1625   N. Carpenter Geogr. Delineated ii. xi. 185   That parcell of ground..was before the time of Moses become the Salt Sea.

1667   S. Pepys Diary 21 Apr. (1974) VIII. 173   I took him..to look upon the ground which is to be let there, where I have a mind to buy enough to build a coach-house and stable.

a1774   O. Goldsmith tr. P. Scarron Comic Romance (1775) II. vi. 58   We travelled till night, and afterwards having gone a great deal more ground [etc.].

1842   S. Lover Handy Andy iii. 34   ‘I bungle the loading of pistols! I that have stepped more ground than any man in the country!’

1860   J. Tyndall Glaciers of Alps i. xvii. 121   The glacier..takes up ground which belonged to it in former ages.

1900   Pilot 24 Mar. 110/2   Much of the ground covered in these expeditions is practically new to the modern European.

figurative.

1727   A. Hamilton New Acct. E. Indies II. xlvii. 170   And thought that the Kings Refusal to make good their Demands, was a sufficient Piece of Ground to build their War on.

 b. esp. in to break (new) ground, to make progress in a new direction (see break v. Phrases 3c); to gain (also gather, get) ground: to advance, make progress; literal and figurative (see gain v.2 8, gather v. 9, get v. Phrases 2b); to give ground: to recede, retire (see give v. 45); to lose ground: to fall back, decline (see lose v.1 3d); to make (up) ground, to make progress.

c1436   Libel Eng. Policy in Pol. Poems (Rolls) II. 188   Wylde Yrishe so muche of grounde have gotyne There upon us.

c1436   Libel Eng. Policy in Pol. Poems (Rolls) II. 189   In that land..we lesse every yere More grounde and more.

?1529   S. Fish Supplicacyon for Beggers sig. A3   The Turke..shulde neuer be abill to get so moche grounde of cristendome.

1576   A. Fleming tr. C. Plinius Novocomensis in Panoplie Epist. 254   To outrunne the ringleader, and thereby to gett ground.

1607   T. Dekker & J. Webster Famous Hist. Thomas Wyat sig. Ev   They come, no man giue ground..Be Englishmen and berd them to their faces.

1647   J. Howell New Vol. of Lett. 6   To deale plainly with you, you have lost some ground at Court by it.

1687   A. Lovell tr. J. de Thévenot Trav. into Levant i. 111   Though we beat and tack'd to and agen till the evening, we gained no ground.

a1776   R. James Diss. Fevers (1778) 53   He sweated profusely and the delirium began to give ground.

1804   W. Tennant Indian Recreat. (ed. 2) I. 39   A more independent spirit..is daily gaining ground among that class of men.

1870   J. H. Burton Hist. Scotl. to 1688 VII. lxxiii. 170   They were steadily losing ground in the war.

1895   E. C. Brewer Dict. Phrase & Fable (rev. ed.) 557/2   To break ground, to be the first to commence a project, etc.; to take the first step in an undertaking.

1906   H. C. Wyld Hist. Study Mother Tongue v. 94   Those tendencies..which are peculiar to the individual, and which are not shared by the community, will not gain ground, but will be eliminated.

1921   Granta 30 Nov.   The local side again and again made ground galore with long kicks down wind.

1928   Nation & Athenæum 7 Jan. 537/2   Montesquieu..had been the first to break the new ground.

1931   F. L. Allen Only Yesterday ix. 229   Theodore Dreiser, Willa Cather,..the Imagists and exponents of free verse had been breaking new ground since before the war.

1932   Sunday Express 3 July 22/7   Udaipur is gradually making up ground on the colts in Butters' stable.

1954   G. D. H. Cole Hist. Socialist Thought II. xiii. 362   Communities breaking new ground were in constant danger of becoming the prey of fraudulent financiers and bankers.

1954   A. S. C. Ross in Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 55 45   Posh ‘smart’ is essentially non-U, but recently, it has gained ground among schoolboys of all classes.

1966   Listener 10 Mar. 345/2   I've had to break new ground in all directions in order to say them.

 c. to take ground: to take up, or move into, a certain position. literal and figurative.

1700 [see sense 13b].

1817   J. Mill Hist. Brit. India II. v. v. 489   Uncertainty was at last removed, by his marching towards Arcot, and taking ground before it on the 21st of August.

1859   F. A. Griffiths Artillerist's Man. (1862) 18   Take ground to the right (or left) in fours.

1883   Harper's Mag. Nov. 850/1   He took new ground..as to..painting.

 d. figurative. With allusion to a metaphorical ‘travelling’ or the like: subject matter, things that may be the object of study or discourse. Also rarely with a: a department of study.

1796   H. Hunter tr. J.-H. B. de Saint-Pierre Stud. Nature (1799) I. 12   His pupil had the courage to walk over the same ground after him.

1804   W. Tennant Indian Recreat. (ed. 2) I. 117   The learned Dr. Robertson has travelled partly over the same ground.

1842   S. Lover Handy Andy xiii. 112   Mr. B...thought he had touched on forbidden ground.

1847   L. Hunt Men, Women, & Bks. I. i. 8   The more we know of any one ground of knowledge, the further we see into the general domains of intellect.

1933   H. L. Ickes Diary 12 Sept. in Secret Diary (1953) I. 88   At eleven o'clock we had a meeting of the Public Works Board and we covered a great deal of ground.

 12. Preceded by a descriptive or limiting adj., or an attributive n.: area or space having a specified extent or character, or adapted for a specified purpose. literal and figurative.

 a. With a and plural. (Now only with attributive n. or with an adjective indicating relative position or change of level.)

c1400  (▸1391)    G. Chaucer Treat. Astrolabe (Cambr. Dd.3.53) (1872) ii. §29. 39   Lat thyn Astrelabie kowch adown euene vp-on a smothe grond.

1535   Bible (Coverdale) Exod. iii. 5   The place where vpon thou stondest, is an wholy grounde.

1535   Bible (Coverdale) Ps. cvi[i]. 35   He maketh..water sprynges of a drye grounde.

1553   T. Wilson Arte Rhetorique (1580) 225   I feare none, because I stande uppon a saufe grounde.

1587   A. Fleming et al. Holinshed's Chron. (new ed.) III. 823/1   The king..lodged within three miles of the citie, on a corne ground by the river.

1619   E. M. Bolton tr. Florus Rom. Hist. 117   Hee..did beat the enemie from a ground of aduantage.

1662   B. Gerbier Brief Disc. Princ. Building 14   On a low ground by the River side.

1707   J. Freind Acct. Earl of Peterborow's Conduct in Spain 215   The Country..was full of little rising Grounds and Valleys.

1777   W. Robertson Hist. Amer. (1783) II. 61   Tribes seated on..hunting-grounds abounding so much with game, that they have a regular and plentiful supply of nourishment with little labour.

1805   Med. & Physical Jrnl. 14 565   That our author may be able to meet Dr. Jackson..on equal grounds.

1855   W. H. Prescott Hist. Reign Philip II of Spain I. i. viii. 267   A level ground, four leagues in breadth, lay between the armies.

1872   J. Yeats Growth Commerce 112   The fishing grounds of Portugal and England were used in common.

1894   J. T. Fowler in St. Adamnan Vita S. Columbae Introd. 59   The spot was on a rising ground in a bend of the Foyle.

 b. in generalized sense.

c1436   Libel Eng. Policy in Pol. Poems (Rolls) II. 192   Lytelle wenythe the fole..What woo it were for alle this Englysshe grounde.

?1523   J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry f. iiiiv   In tough clay, and vpon hilly ground.

1568  (▸a1508)    W. Kennedy Flyting (Bannatyne) in Poems W. Dunbar (1998) I. 209   Out of Dumbar that theif he maid exyle Vnto Edward and Inglis grund agane.

1580   Sir P. Sidney tr. Psalmes David xxvi. vi   I..Sett on plaine ground will thee Jehovah praise.

1611   Bible (King James) Exod. iii. 5 [cf. 1535 Coverdale in a].  

a1616   W. Shakespeare Julius Caesar (1623) iii. i. 192   My credit now stands on such slippery ground .  

1639   T. Fuller Hist. Holy Warre iv. xiv. 192   Though he stood on the lower ground in point of birth.

1781   W. Cowper Friendship 34   If..on forbidden ground..We sought without attaining.

a1822   P. B. Shelley Masque of Anarchy (1832) lxv. 33   On some spot of English ground.

1853   Ld. Tennyson To E. L. 10   I..track'd you still on classic ground.

1888   J. Inglis Tent Life Tigerland 1   The best tiger-shooting ground in the world.

 13. With reference to possessor or occupier, denoted by a genitive noun or possessive pronoun.

 a. The portion of land forming the property (†or territory) of a person (†or people), or occupied by one as a tenant.

a1400–50   Alexander 188   Ȝour king sall..gett agayn his avyn gronde.

a1400–50   Alexander 1973   Miȝt þou þe marches of Messe~doyne mayntene þi-selfe And gouerne bot þine awen gronde.

c1436   Libel Eng. Policy in Pol. Poems (Rolls) II. 188   Oure grounde there is a lytelle cornere To alle Yrelonde in trewe comparisone.

1533   Presentm. Juries in Surtees Misc. (1888) 34   That every man ryng his swyne, except they kepe theyme of theire owne growinde.

1548   W. Forrest Pleasaunt Poesye 375 in T. Starkey Eng. in Reign King Henry VIII (1878) i. p. xcv   Hee [sc. the poor man] cannot els lyue so deeare is his grownde.

a1616   W. Shakespeare Merry Wives of Windsor (1623) ii. ii. 209   Like a fair house, built on another mans ground .  

1787   W. Cowper Let. 30 Aug. (1982) III. 19   Mr. T. having long since put me in possession of all his grounds, has now given me possession of his library.

1842   Ld. Tennyson Amphion in Poems (new ed.) II. 169   'Tis in my neighbour's ground.

1855   Ld. Tennyson Maud xx, in Maud & Other Poems 66   Rivulet crossing my ground.

 b. The space upon which a person, etc., takes his stand; the position maintained or defended by one; esp. in phrases to hold one's ground, to keep one's ground, to maintain one's ground, to stand one's ground, to shift one's ground; now usually figurative (sometimes with suggestion of sense 5a).

1616   J. Lane Contin. Squire's Tale (Chaucer Soc.) ix. 176   He fightinge to maintaine Fregilia towne, they bearinge in to make his grown their grown.

1657   A. Sparrow Rationale Bk. Common Prayer (1661) 239   The Church thereby keeping as it were her ground.

1657   R. Ligon True Hist. Barbados 1   A friend, as willing to shift his ground as I, gave me an Overture which I accepted.

1700   J. Dryden Flower & Leaf in Fables 394   Drawn in two Lines adverse they wheel'd around, And in the middle Meadow took their Ground.

1707   London Gaz. No. 4353/1   The Deserters..stood their Ground, and..fir'd on 'em.

1712   W. Rogers Cruising Voy. 278   We can hardly keep our Ground against the Current.

1797   Instr. & Regulations Cavalry (rev. ed.) App. 234   The commanding officer turns on his own ground.

1801   J. Strutt Glig-gamena Angel-ðeod i. i. 4   The sports of the field still maintained their ground.

1809   B. H. Malkin tr. A. R. Le Sage Adventures Gil Blas I. ii. vii. 287   She met me on my own ground.

1833   H. Martineau Briery Creek v. 113   Here the humblest slave might stand erect on the ground of his humanity.

1856   J. A. Froude Hist. Eng. (1858) I. i. 34   The government was strong enough to hold its ground.

1859   J. S. Mill On Liberty iii. 132   It is not easy to see how it [Individuality] can stand its ground.

1881   B. Jowett tr. Thucydides Hist. Peloponnesian War I. 197   I, like him taking the ground of future expediency, stoutly maintain the contrary position.

 14.

 a. The particular space or area under consideration, or one used for some special purpose, esp. the scene of any contest, or meeting. off the ground: out of the way. on the ground: engaged in a duel.

c1540  (▸?a1400)    Destr. Troy 1174   A noumbur hoge Of Grekes were gedret & þe grounde hade.

c1540  (▸?a1400)    Destr. Troy 1352   The Troiens..ffleddon in fere..When the Grekys hade the gre & the grounde wonen.

a1572   J. Knox Hist. Reformation Scotl. in Wks. (1846) I. 115   Content to talk with the Governour, providit that the Cardinall and his cumpany war of the ground.

a1616   W. Shakespeare Julius Caesar (1623) iv. ii. 49   Bid our Commanders leade their Charges off A little from this ground .  

1679   J. Dryden & N. Lee Oedipus iv. 60   I'm too well acquainted with the ground, quite to forget it.

1816   W. Scott Old Mortality vi, in Tales of my Landlord 1st Ser. II. 132   Why came ye na hame when other folk left the grund?

1836   C. Dickens Pickwick Papers (1837) iv. 35   There were sentries posted to keep the ground for the troops.

1843   W. M. Thackeray Ravenswing vii, in Fraser's Mag. Sept. 327/1   He has been ‘on the ground’ I don't know how many times.

1850   H. T. Cheever Whale & his Captors iii. 60   They had just arrived on the ground, and had not yet taken any whales.

1897   Earl of Suffolk et al. Encycl. Sport I. 72   Ground, a rectangular sheet of ice, measuring not more than 200 yds. × 100 yds. and not less than 100 × 50.

 b. Cricket.  (a) The space on which the game is played;  (b) the space within which a player may lawfully stand while taking a particular part in the game; the (also his, etc.) ground, (of a batsman) = the ground behind the popping-crease;  (c) the paid staff of players attached to a club (also ground-staff).

1718   Weekly Jrnl. 6 Sept.   Three of their Men made an Elopement, and got off the Ground without going in.

1733   London Evening-post 20 Sept.   There will be a Line around the Ground as usual, within which none but the Gamesters are to be admitted.

1775   New Articles Game of Cricket 4   The Strikers need not keep within their Ground till the Umpire has called Play.

1795   S. Britcher Compl. List Grand Matches Cricket 34   This rule is not meant..to prevent the Bowler from filling up holes, watering his ground, or using sawdust, &c., when the ground is wet.

1850   ‘Bat’ Cricketer's Man. (ed. 4) 78   The..players of ‘the Ground’..act in the..capacity of..umpire.

1857   T. Hughes Tom Brown's School Days ii. viii. 388   He is never in his ground, except when his wicket is down.

1880   Lillywhite's Cricketers' Ann. 49   The ground staff for 1879 at Lord's consisted of [the twenty-two professional players named].

1882   Daily Tel. 27 May   His colleague driving the ball into his wicket whilst he was just out of the ground.

1894   Times 23 Mar. 10/2   There are various additions to the ground staff... The list of ‘the ground’ is now as follows.

1955   T. H. Pear Eng. Social Differences xi. 260   Boys of outstanding promise [at cricket] can receive coaching if they take jobs on a club ground-staff.

 c. to have the ground on one's side: to have the advantage of position (in a contest.)

1650   N. Ward Discolliminium 1   He knows well that he hath gotten the ground and winde on his side, but I think I have the Sun on my back.

 15. In technical uses.

†a. (See quot. 1753.) Obsolete.

1753   Chambers's Cycl. Suppl. at Bowling   Ground, a bag or handkerchief laid down to mark where a bowl is to go.

 b. Telegraphy. The contact of the conductor of an electric circuit with the earth; the escape of current resulting from this.

1870   F. L. Pope Electr. Telegr. (1872) v. 63   The effect of a ground or escape is..to exhaust the batteries more rapidly.

1883   T. D. Lockwood Electr., Magn., & Electr. Telegr. 138   If an accidental connection with the ground should occur, or, as it is technically said, a ground appears on the wires.

1892   T. O'C. Sloane Standard Electr. Dict. (1893)   

 IV. Soil, earth.

 16.

 a. The soil of the earth. Also without article: Soil, earth, mould; now only in Mining (see quot. 1881) except with descriptive adj. to break ground (see break v. Phrases 3).

a1400  (▸a1325)    Cursor Mundi (Vesp.) l. 6747   Theif hus brecand, or gruband grund.

?1523   J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry f. vi   If the grounde be good put the more beanes to ye pees.

1547   Certain Serm. or Homilies Misery Mankind i, in J. Griffiths Two Bks. Homilies (1859) i. 16   We may learn to know ourselves to be but ground, earth, and ashes.

1660   T. Willsford Scales Commerce & Trade 196   This Trench (where the labourers first break ground).

1696   tr. J. Dumont New Voy. Levant 131   There are no Woods in it by reason of the shallowness of the Ground.

1700   Moxon's Mech. Exercises: Bricklayers-wks. 17   He ought to dig it deeper till he comes to firm ground; or if it proves to be loose, or made Ground [etc.]

1795   Gentleman's Mag. 65 539/1   The extreme wetness of the ground had delayed the operation of the share.

1881   Trans. Amer. Inst. Mining Engineers 1880–1 9 143   Ground, the rock in which a vein is found; also, any given portion of the mineral deposit itself.

1884   Public Opinion 12 Sept. 338/1   The loose shale..has moved forward..and carried away both shafts..down to blue ground.

 b. With a and plural. A kind or variety of soil. ? Obsolete.

▸ a1398   J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomaeus Anglicus De Proprietatibus Rerum (BL Add. 27944) (1975) II. xvii. lxv. 956   Som corn þryueþ [in] on ground and fayleþ in anoþer.

?1523   J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry f. i   Ther is many maner of groundes and soyle. Some white cley, somme reed cley [etc.].

1542   A. Borde Compend. Regyment Helth iv. sig. C.iv   Let hym make his fundacyon vpon a graualy grownde myxt with clay.

1583   P. Stubbes Second Pt. Anat. Abuses sig. G2v   They know exactly..what ground is best for euerie kinde of corne.

1626   F. Bacon Sylua Syluarum §409   In some Grounds which are strong, you shall haue a Raddish, &c. come in a Moneth.

1697   J. Dryden tr. Virgil Georgics i, in tr. Virgil Wks. 51   This Ground with Bacchus, that with Ceres suits.  

1787   G. Winter New Syst. Husbandry 9   When a farmer cannot keep the produce of each ground separate.

Compounds

 C1. General combinations.

 a. Simple attributive, locative and objective (in senses of branches I., III.)

 (a)

  ground-bed  n.

1615   G. Sandys Relation of Journey 88   Vntil rowzed from our ground-beds by the report of the Cannon.

  ground-builder  n.

1859   New Amer. Cycl. III. 282/1   The hawks are platform-builders, ground-builders, occupants of hollow trees, &c.

  ground-clearance  n.

1959   Motor Man. (ed. 36) 4   The chassis frame cannot be lowered beyond a certain point without endangering the ground clearance of the car.

  ground-end  n.

1819   A. Rees Cycl. XVII   Ground-end, of a Mine, signifies the forefield or foremost place of working, in the whole or footground.

  ground-fabric  n.

1938   Burlington Mag. Sept. 115/1   The loosely-woven linen ground-fabric is entirely covered..with rich ornament.

1967   E. Short Embroidery & Fabric Collage i. 19   These all entail cutting away part of the ground fabric.

  ground-feeder  n.

1887   Encycl. Brit. XXII. 611   Sturgeons are ground-feeders.

  ground-herb  n.

1626   F. Bacon Sylua Syluarum §530   To make the Herbe grow contrary to his Nature; As to make Ground-Herbs rise in Heighth.

  ground-level n.

1910   Daily Chron. 8 Mar. 1/6   The Parisian ‘star’, returning to her room at midnight, sees a strange object approaching her ground-level windows from the garden.

1959   Times 22 Aug. 9/4   Being nearer to eye-level can be better appreciated than when at ground-level in the border or rockery.

  ground-mark  n.

1633   T. Stafford Pacata Hibernia (1810) ii. xiii. 368   That the Artillery might play as well by night as day himself did take and score out his ground-markes.

  ground-nest  n.

1671   J. Milton Paradise Regain'd ii. 280   And now the Herald Lark Left his ground-nest .  

1833   H. Martineau Briery Creek vi. 134   A lark sprang up from the ground-nest where she was sitting solitary.

  ground-nester  n.

1875   Field & Forest 1 10   It was a very neat structure, and looked to me as though the owner was habitually a ‘ground-nester’.

1964   A. L. Thomson New Dict. Birds 524/1   Other non-passerines may be broadly divided into ground-nesters, hole-nesters, and the builders of simple nests in trees.

  ground-pipe  n.

1691   J. Evelyn Kalendarium Hortense (ed. 8) 159   The Air Ground-pipe, laid..in the middle of the Floor.

  ground-soil  n.

1834   S. Cooper Good's Study Med. (ed. 4) II. 645   The lowness and original swampiness of the ground-soil.

  ground-sward  n.

1829   S. T. Coleridge Garden of Boccaccio 66   I..sit on the ground-sward.

  ground-tilth  n.

1556   N. Grimald tr. Cicero Thre Bks. Duties i. f. 59   For of all thinges, whereoute anie gayne is sought, nothing is better than ground tilth.

  ground-whirl  n.

1881   D. G. Rossetti House of Life iv   The ground-whirl of the perished leaves of Hope.

 (b)

  ground-building  n.

1864   J. C. Atkinson Stanton Grange 114   I think the mouse has the odds in an attack on a ground-building bee's nest.

  ground-deep adj.

1610   W. Folkingham Feudigraphia i. iv. 9   The Goates of Angori are hung with shag ground-deepe.

  ground-feeding adj.

1859   C. Darwin Origin of Species v. 134   The larger ground-feeding birds seldom take flight except to escape danger.

1938   Brit. Birds 32 222   An attempt to measure the frequency of association in the same fields of the more conspicuous ground-feeding birds was made.

  ground-nesting adj.

1880   A. R. Wallace Island Life 79   The seeds becoming attached to the plumage of ground-nesting birds.

  ground-routing adj.

1867   F. Francis Bk. Angling i. 42   Barbel, which are a ground-routing fish.

 b. Attributive (in senses of branch II.). Often quasi-adjectival = ‘fundamental’, †‘deep-seated’, etc.Many of these formations are recent imitations of German compounds of grund, such as grundform, grundgedanke, grundidee, etc.

  ground-basis  n.

1920   T. P. Nunn Education 156   The function of the self-regarding sentiment is to exercise control over the ‘objective’ sentiments that form the ground-basis of the self.

  ground-fact  n.

1905   Spectator 11 Mar. 353/1   The underlying ground-fact of Russia, the inadequacy of her food-supply.

  ground-faith  n.

1871   R. H. Hutton Ess. (1877) I. 37   In the absence of this ground-faith.

  ground-feature  n.

1807   tr. C. A. G. Goede Stranger in Eng. II. 221   The ground-features of his portrait must be natural.

  ground-form  n.

1847   J. D. Morell Hist. View Speculative Philos. (ed. 2) I. i. 118   The native construction of the intellectual faculty..contains all those ground-forms of the understanding, by which knowledge from experience can be assimilated.

1879   J. A. H. Murray in Trans. Philol. Soc. 611   From the ground-form—Ostyak ma, Samoyed man.

1881   Amer. Jrnl. Math. 4 41   Tables of the..Groundforms of the Binary Duodecimic.

1938   J. R. Carpenter Ecol. Gloss.   Ground form, elementary form, as distinguished from growth form.

† ground-harm  n. Obsolete

c1540  (▸?a1400)    Destr. Troy 1431   A light wrathe..growes into ground harme.

† ground-hate  n. Obsolete

c1540  (▸?a1400)    Destr. Troy 1403   Thurgh vnhappe of þat kynde..Myche greuance shall groo & a ground hate.

  ground-idea  n.

1865   Sat. Rev. 7 Jan. 16/1   Moulding his ground-idea into a poetical whole.

1872   J. Morley Voltaire vi. 299   When we come to the ground idea of the Essay on Manners.

  ground-principle  n.

1847   J. D. Morell Hist. View Speculative Philos. (ed. 2) I. 3   The primary efforts of reason to get at the ground principles of human knowledge were naturally weak and imperfect.

1873   M. Arnold Lit. & Dogma iii. 86   This was the very ground-principle in Christ's teaching.

  ground-quality  n.

1897   T. Hardy Well-beloved ii. iii. 115   Avice..had yet possessed a ground-quality absent from her rivals.

1897   T. Hardy Well-beloved iii. vii. 314   Pierston heard a voice below, the accents of a woman. They had a ground quality of familiarity, a superficial articulation of strangeness.

  ground-root  n.

a1569   A. Kingsmill Viewe Mans Estate (1580) xi. 65   That this love might take a more groundroote in our hartes.

  ground-sense  n.

1909   E. B. Titchener Text-bk. Psychol. i. 116   The sense of smell..is also a ground-sense:..our own disregard of smell sensations is largely due to our assumption of the upright position.

  ground-thought  n.

1873   M. Arnold Lit. & Dogma viii. 256   Righteousness is its ground-thought.

  ground-tint  n.

1875   tr. H. W. Vogel Chem. Light & Photogr. vii. 59   The painter indeed contents himself with three ground tints—yellow, blue, and red.

  ground-tone  n.

1841–4   R. W. Emerson Poet in Wks. (1906) I. 157   We hear, through all the varied music, the ground-tone of conventional life.

1874   H. R. Reynolds John the Baptist iii. §3. 199   David's psalms reveal the ground-tone and key-notes of Nathan's prophecies.

1909   Westm. Gaz. 8 Mar. 5/2   Her sash will repeat the ground-tone of her dress.

†c. With adjectives and pples. = ‘to the bottom’, hence ‘completely, thoroughly, extremely’, as ground-filled, ground-hot, ground-laden, ground-stalwart. (Cf. German grundfalsch, etc.) Obsolete.

c1275  (▸?a1200)    Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1963) l. 2839   Ofte heo letten grund-hat læd gliden heom an heore hæfd.

c1275  (▸?a1200)    Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1963) l. 555   Feower scipen greate þe weren grund-ladene [c1300 Otho grund-lade].

c1275  (▸?a1200)    Laȝamon Brut (Calig.) (1963) l. 546   Þa scipen weoren igreþede mid gode grund-fulled.

▸ c1300   Havelok (Laud) (1868) 1025   Þe ston was mikel, and ek greth,..Grund stalwrthe man he sholde be, Þat mouthe liften it to his kne.

 d. In Aviation.

 (a)

  ground alert adj.

1965   H. Kahn On Escalation 294   A ground-alert bomber.

  ground attack  n. and adj.

1917   ‘Contact’ Airman's Outings i. vii. 203   We shall see a great extension of ground attacks by air cavalry.

1954   Economist 11 Sept. 11/1   In some countries..special aircraft for ground attack duties only have been developed.

  ground boost  n.

1930   Flight 14 Mar. 305/2   Supercharging was the expression used to denote restoring the ground h.p. at some height, while ground boost was used to get increased power at ground level.

  ground control  n. Landing, etc., by instrument direction from the ground.

1933   Jrnl. Royal Aeronaut. Soc. 37 31   How would he suggest the air control and ground control should be organised there?

1945   Newsweek 20 Aug. 42/3   GCA (Ground Control Approach) which permits blind landings of planes through overcast.

1969   Listener 1 May 596/1   He explained to ground control what was happening and ordered the crew to bail out.

 (b)

  ground control approach  n. (also ground controlled approach) (Abbreviated G.C.A.)

1945   Amer. Speech 20 309/2   GCA, Ground Controlled Approach, Ground radar landing system.

1959   R. Collier City that wouldn't Die vii. 105   His navigator..was in minute-by-minute touch with the new G.C.I. (Ground Controlled Interception).

  ground controller  n.

1958   Listener 21 Aug. 259/1   It is the ground controllers' job to see that collisions do not happen.

1970   Daily Tel. 15 Apr. 1/7   Ground controllers..decided against a speed-up plan that would have brought Apollo 13 down by tomorrow night.

 (c)

  ground crew  n.

1934   Sci. Amer. Feb. 83 (caption)    The ground crew guiding the ship [sc. airship] into the hangar.

1940   Flight 7 Nov. b/2   The efficient devotion of ground crews and excellence of material is responsible for the trouble-free journeys made each night.

1952   Ann. Reg. 1951 109   The Government announced that pilots and ground crews had won 154 U.S. decorations.

  ground cushion  n. and adj.

1949   Jrnl. Royal Aeronaut. Soc. 53 317/1   For take-off at altitude, a strong ‘ground cushion’ is an advantage.

1956   N.Y. Times 8 Jan. x. 41/5   The issue revolves about a phenomenon peculiar to helicopters known as ground cushion effect. What it means is this: Up to ten or twelve feet off the ground, or over water, a helicopter receives added buoyancy by the packed mass of air churned downward from the overhead rotors.

  ground defence  n.

1952   R. Sherbrooke-Walker Khaki & Blue i. 3   The problem became acute when ‘Ground Defence’ came along in the early days.

  ground effect  n. and adj.

1935   Jrnl. Royal Aeronaut. Soc. 39 277   The machine was a high wing monoplane and one would not expect much ‘ground effect’.

1938   Aeronaut. Res. Committee Rep. & Mem. No. 1865 1   General formulae for..corrections to ground effect have been obtained for wings of any span.

1959   Observer 18 Jan. 15/4   The principle on which the Hovercraft is built has a good deal in common with an infuriating phenomenon known to pilots as ‘ground effect’, which occurs when certain types of aircraft come in to land. Their closeness to the ground creates something akin to a pad of air on which the aircraft floats tantalisingly a foot or so above the runway instead of sinking to the ground.

1966   Electronics 17 Oct. 131   It would be carried on anything from a hydrofoil craft and a ground-effect machine, which rides over water and land on a cushion of air, to helicopters and pilotless drone aircraft.

  ground engineer  n.

1920   Flight 11 Nov. 1182/2   Under present arrangements, a machine is supposed to receive an inspection by a ground engineer.

1928   Daily Mail 9 Aug. 7/1   Ground engineer of the London Aero Club.

1932   D. Garnett Rabbit in Air i. 7   The ground engineer gave us pamphlets about the Flying Club.

1958   ‘N. Shute’ Rainbow & Rose i. 2   He had a ground engineer.

  ground loop  v. and n.

1921   Flight 5 May 315/2   The aeroplane has a tendency to ground loop in landing or in taxying in a strong wind.

1928   Daily Mail 7 May 6/4   Ground Loops.—Touching the ground and rising again.

1959   F. D. Adams Aeronaut. Dict. 86/1   Ground loop, 1. a violent, whirling turn of an airplane while moving on the ground... 2. loosely, a nose~over.

  ground looping  n.

1937   Jrnl. Royal Aeronaut. Soc. 41 829   The author investigates some of the causes of so-called ‘ground looping’, i.e., the instability observed with certain machines when landing in a cross wind and which causes them to swing violently after touching ground.

1950   Gloss. Aeronaut. Terms (B.S.I.) i. 11   Ground looping, an uncontrollable violent turn of an aircraft while taxying, alighting or taking-off.

 (d)

  ground marker  n.

1944   Times 26 Apr. 4/1   A number of crews were bombing from a clear sky while others at the same moment were aiming at the ground markers through the clouds.

  ground mechanic  n.

1935   C. Day Lewis Time to Dance & Other Poems 57   But those hands have been always The ground mechanics of our wide-wing pride.

  ground organization  n.

1920   Proc. Air Conf. 11 in Parl. Papers 1921 (Cmd. 1157) VIII. 299   A problem of considerable difficulty is the ground organisation for night flying.

1933   Discovery Dec. 367/1   All these difficulties could..be got over if there was a good ground organization and aircraft..to operate at such heights with multi-engines.

  ground position  n.

1951   Gloss. Aeronaut. Terms (B.S.I.) iii. 7   Ground position, the position on the earth vertically below an aircraft.

  ground resonance  n.

1940   Jrnl. Aeronaut. Sci. Aug. 449/2   A series of high-speed motion pictures were taken of a turning rotor which was made to oscillate in ground resonance.

1959   F. D. Adams Aeronaut. Dict. 86/1   Ground resonance, a self-excited, mechanical, potentially destructive vibration of a rotary-wing aircraft in operation on the ground or surface, involving a coupling between the motion of the rotor blades and the motion of the supporting structure or the motion of the aircraft as a whole on its landing gear.

  ground school  n.

1924   Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Addenda   Ground school, a school giving courses in aërodynamics, map-making, photography, etc., for aviators.

  ground speed  n.

1917   Blackwood's Mag. May 805/2   Our ground speed was now a good deal greater than if we had travelled directly west.

1924   Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Addenda   Ground speed, the horizontal component of the velocity of an aircraft relative to the earth.

1928   C. F. S. Gamble Story N. Sea Air Station i   If there be no wind..a very much greater ‘ground speed’ has to be attained..before the machine will gain enough flying speed for the wings to take some load off the floats, and eventually enable the machine to ‘take-off’ from the surface of the sea.

1967   F. G. Mercer Applied Aviation Sci. viii. 48   An airplane flying eastward at a true airspeed..of 120 mph in still air, will have a ground speed exactly the same—120 mph.

  ground staff  n.

1933   P. Fleming Brazilian Adventure iv. 35   He..joined the ground staff of an aerodrome there.

1957   R. W. Zandvoort et al. Wartime Eng. 8   Aircrew,..a collective term for flying personnel, as opp. to ground staff.

  ground stunt  n.

1917   ‘Contact’ Airman's Outings i. vii. 196   Fighting squadrons soon caught the craze for ground stunts and carried it well beyond the lines.

  ground support  n. and adj.

1953   Aero Digest Oct. 37/3   An entire system of enemy destruction..includes a four-jet delta-wing supersonic bomber including its..reconnaissance, training, ground support and logistics systems.

1956   W. A. Heflin U.S. Air Force Dict. 238/2   Ground support, 1. either close air support or general air support. 2. the maintenance and care of flying equipment by the ground echelon.

1962   J. Glenn in Into Orbit 11   I flew..jets for sixty-three ground-support missions.

1967   Technol. Week 20 Feb. 41/3   Design openings include development of..ground support equipment.

  ground troops  n.

1941   Flight 6 Feb. 107/2   A Rhodesian squadron has been giving support to the ground troops.

  ground wallah  n.

1925   E. Fraser & J. Gibbons Soldier & Sailor Words 112   Ground wallah, an Air Force term for a member of the R.A.F. whose duties were concerned with administrative, or office and aerodrome technical work.

 (e)

  ground-based adj.

1958   Chambers's Techn. Dict. Suppl. 1018/1   Ground-based..radio duct.

1960   Times 23 Feb. 5/3   In the semi~active homing system a ground-based radar illuminates the target.

1965   H. Kahn On Escalation ix. 171   Ground-based missiles.

1965   Punch 7 Apr. 506/2   A report just published by the National Academy of Sciences (counterpart of the Royal Society) surveys the requirements of ‘ground-based’ astronomy over the next ten years.

 (f)

 (i)

  ground-strafe  v.  [as a back-formation] transitive.

1943   C. H. Ward-Jackson It's a Piece of Cake 35   Ground-strafe, to attack ground objectives.

  ground-strafer  n.

1938   Flight 15 Sept. 222/2   The ground-strafer's weapon should be..the light bomb.

  ground-strafing  n. (also ground-straffing)

1928   C. F. S. Gamble Story N. Sea Air Station iv   ‘Ground-straffing’ by low-flying machines.

1934   V. M. Yeates Winged Victory i. iii. 31   Unfortunately they were good machines for ground-strafing. They could dive straight down on anything, and when a few feet off the ground, go straight up again.

1941   Times Weekly 5 Feb. 8   In Libya..air activity was mainly confined to protective fighter patrols for our advancing troops and ground-strafing of the retreating enemy between Derna and Barce.

1943   J. L. Hunt & A. G. Pringle Service Slang 38   Ground-strafing, low-flying attack on transport or trenches; careless driving by servicemen.

1963   S. Douglas Years of Combat viii. 194   Ground strafing..had been a somewhat haphazard sort of business.

 (ii) Used esp. as attributive phrases.

  ground-to-air adj.

1945   Aeroplane 30 Nov. 619/2   An interesting point about the German development of air-to-air and ground-to-air weapons was the way in which ‘pukka’ aircraft designers were brought in to design missiles.

1951   Gloss. Aeronaut. Terms (B.S.I.) iii. 18   Ground-to-air communication, one-way communication from ground stations to aircraft.

1958   Observer 15 June 18/6   The Russians can be assumed to be building ground-to-air missiles that are every bit as good.

  ground-to-ground adj.

1920   Flight 10 June 624/2   Radio Telephony..Procedure.—Ground to ground. The following abbreviated procedure to be used between ground stations A and B.

1943   L. Cheshire Bomber Pilot 18   It was ground-to-ground tracer, firing east and so probably British.

1958   Times 11 Sept. 4/5   The huge Corporal ground-to-ground guided missile.

 C2.

 a.

  ground-air  n. (see quot.).

1886   New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon   Ground air, the air contained in the soil. This contains a large portion of carbonic acid gas due to the disintegration of organic substances.

  ground and lofty  n. applied to acrobatic feats or performers on the ground and on a rope, etc.; also transferred.

1796   Gazette of U.S. (Philadelphia) 19 Nov. (advt.)    Ground and Lofty Tumbling [at the Pantheon, Philadelphia].

1840   Southern Literary Messenger 6 386/1   He is an adept in the art of walking on his head, turning somersets, and ground and lofty tumbling generally.

1843   T. Weed Let. 19 July (1866) 108   A strolling company of ‘Ground and Lofty’ Tumblers.

1898   J. Hollingshead Gaiety Chron. viii. 330   The ‘talented Cocksure family’ in their celebrated ground and lofty performance.

1907   M. C. Harris Tents of Wickedness iii. iv. 260   He has resigned his parish, left the ministry and bought a seat on the Stock Exchange. Isn't that ground and lofty tumbling?

  ground-angling n. fishing with a weighted line without a float, bottom-fishing ( Dict. Rusticum 1704); similarly ground angler.

1835   T. T. Stoddart Art of Angling in Scotl. 47   Remarkably fine gut ought to be used by all ground anglers.

  ground-bailiff  n. a superintendent or inspector of mines (Simmonds Dict. Trade, 1858).

  ground ball  n. Cricket and Baseball = grounder n. 3c.

1839   Bell's Life in London 13 Oct.   It was for the umpire at the bowler's end to decide whether it was a ‘ground’ ball.

1851   J. Pycroft Cricket Field vii. 99   The toss, the tice, the half volley, the long hop, and ground balls.

1948   P.C.C. Chron. (Pasadena, Calif.) 7 May 4/5   Salter hit a hard ground ball to shortstop Bill Davis.

  ground-bass  n. Music a bass-passage of four or eight bars in length, constantly repeated with a varied melody and harmony (Stainer & Barrett, 1876); also figurative, an undercurrent.

1699   H. Wanley in H. Ellis Orig. Lett. Eminent Literary Men (1843) (Camden) 274   'Tis very like such a common ground-Bass as this.

1955   A. L. Rowse Expansion of Elizabethan Eng. ii. 76   Their correspondence, their reports on the condition of their dioceses, always come back to this ground-bass.

1963   Guardian 20 Feb. 7/1   With rising unemployment, scarcer money, and a mutinous groundbass already discernible about the new rates householders will soon be called upon to pay, this could be a vintage year for bailiffs.

1968   Listener 23 May 657/3   These highlights apart, there is a ground bass of beatings, shootings and torture, all weltering in blood.

  ground-beam  n. ‘the sill of a frame’ ( Cent. Dict.).

  ground-bowler  n. (see quot. 1934).

1874   Baily's Monthly Mag. June 225   The club has an efficient staff of ground bowlers.

1891   W. G. Grace Cricket xi. 314   So pleased were the authorities of the M.C.C. with his [sc. W. Gunn's] first display at Lord's, that they made him the offer of a place as one of the ground-bowlers.

1934   W. J. Lewis Lang. Cricket 113   Ground-bowler, a professional bowler attached to a club as a member of its ‘ground staff’.

  ground-breaking adj. (cf. break v. Phrases 3c figurative).

1907   W. James Let. 6 Oct. (1920) II. 299   I am going to settle down to the composition of another small book, more original and ground-breaking than anything I have yet put forth (!).

1965   Language 41 138   She has had to do groundbreaking work in establishing the phonological..correspondences between a number of foreign languages and Russian in the 16th and 17th centuries.

  ground-bridge  n. U.S. (see quot.).

1859   J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2)    Ground Bridge, the well-known corduroy road of the South, laid on the bed of a creek or other body of water, to render it fordable.

  ground-bundle  n. Anatomy one of the bundles of nerve-fibres lying on either side of the grey matter of the spinal cord.

1893   H. Morris Treat. Human Anat. 781   The anterior ground bundle appears to be continuous with the posterior longitudinal bundle..The lateral ground bundle is a mixed tract.

  ground-cable  n. that portion of a mooring-cable which is intended to lie on the sea-bottom.

1793   J. Smeaton Narr. Edystone Lighthouse (ed. 2) §129   Our ground cables for the sloop could not yet be got ready.

  ground chain  n. Nautical (see quot.).

1883   Man. Seamanship for Boys' Training Ships Royal Navy 195   Q. What is ground chain? A. A piece of small chain shackled to the anchor shackle,..of sufficient length to come through the hawse pipe when the anchor is high enough for catting.

  ground-chamber  n. a chamber on the ground-floor.

1638   T. Herbert Some Yeares Trav. (rev. ed.) 169   The ground chambers were large.

1886   R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. I. 223   The first floor, as usual, overhangs the ground-chamber.

  ground cloth  n.  (a) (see quot. 1919);  (b) = ground-sheet n.

1919   Gloss. Aeronaut. Terms (Royal Aeronaut. Soc.) 54   Ground cloth, a floor covering, usually of canvas, placed on the ground under an envelope to protect it from damage.

1931   T. S. Stribling Forge xxiv. 204   The oilcloths were for raincoats or for ground cloths, or they could be propped up with sticks for tents.

  ground-colour  n.  (a) a first coating of paint (cf. 6b);  (b) the prevailing colour of any object, diversified with markings of other colours.

1614   T. Jackson Third Bk. Comm. Apostles Creede ii. 286   This conceit..serues as a ground colour for disposing mens soules to take the sable dye of Hell.

1659   T. Burton Diary (1828) III. 558   Do..as Zeuxis did, who painted for eternity; which you can never do, unless your ground-colours be well laid.

1849   Sketches Nat. Hist.: Mammalia III. 147   In adult specimens the ground-colour of the back is yellowish-white, with markings varying from dark gray to dusky black.

1860   J. Ruskin Mod. Painters V. 192   The ground-colours then to be laid firmly... On this first colour, the second colours.

1904   W. H. Hudson Green Mansions vi. 72   A coral snake..its ground colour a brilliant vermilion.

1912   Catal. Birds' Eggs Brit. Mus. V. 105   The ground-colour varies from greyish-white to very pale greyish-green.

1970   H. E. Smith Bantams iii. 20   Females..should be chosen for clear ground colour.

  ground cover  n. the plants covering the surface of the earth, esp., in horticulture, plants whose low, spreading habit of growth smothers weeds; so ground-coverer.

1900   Cycl. Amer. Hort.: E–M 629/2   In suitable soil they [sc. Gaultherias] are apt to form a handsome, evergreen ground-cover.

1906   Westm. Gaz. 31 May 4/2   As soon as the ground-cover was gone, the soil lost its moisture.

1946   Nature 13 July 71/1   Sparse ground-cover of herbs and dense undergrowth of hawthorn, bird-cherry, etc.

1970   G. S. Thomas Plants for Ground-cover i. 3   Ground-cover can be of any height in nature or in the garden.

1970   G. S. Thomas Plants for Ground-cover i. 4   The use of ground-cover plants may be the epitome of natural gardening.

1970   G. S. Thomas Plants for Ground-cover p. xvii   Herbaceous plants..were limited to the stalwart clump-formers and the ground-coverers.

  ground-crab  n. a kind of hoisting-apparatus used in mining (see quot.).

1849   G. C. Greenwell Gloss. Terms Coal Trade Northumberland & Durham 17   Ground crabs are used in sinking, for lowering the sinking set of pumps as the pit is deepened.

  ground detector  n. any instrument which is used to detect an accidental connection to earth in a circuit.

1904   B. V. Swenson & B. Frankenfield Testing Electro-magn. Machinery I. 36   Figure Q shows a General Electric Ground Detector.

1958   Van Nostrand's Sci. Encycl. (ed. 3) 768/1   Lamp type ground detectors are used to a considerable extent on low-voltage circuits because they are reliable and cheap.

† ground-drawer  n. Obsolete (see quots.).

1598   A. M. tr. J. Guillemeau Frenche Chirurg. 7 b/1   If the bullet sticke faste in anye bone, we drawe him forth with that instrument which we call Extractor or Grownde-drawer.

1598   A. M. tr. J. Guillemeau Frenche Chirurg. 13 b/2   This Grounde-drawer is verye acute on his end, becaus the bullet might sticke fast therone.

  ground-drove adj. Obsolete (see quots.).

1819   A. Rees Cycl. XVII   Ground drove, in a Mine, is said of such parts as have been worked, or excavated for the ore or minerals.

† ground-ebb  n. Obsolete low water; also as adj., at low water.

a1420   T. Hoccleve De Regimine Principum 669   God..whan þat his lust was, withdrow þe flood Of welþe, & at grounde ebbe sette he me.

c1430   J. Lydgate Minor Poems (Percy Soc.) 50   The floode was passed and sodainly of newe A lowe ground ebbe was fast by the strond.

?c1450   Life St. Cuthbert (1891) l. 6680   It may noȝt full wele be sene Bot when the se grounde eb bene.

  ground-end  n. Mining (see quot.).

?1523   J. Fitzherbert Bk. Husbandry f. x   The grounde ende of a yong asshe.

  ground-fast adj. firmly fixed in the ground; †also as n., that which holds a thing firm.

1659   C. Hoole tr. J. A. Comenius Orbis Sensualium Pictus lxxxiv. 173/1   The Nave, is the ground-fast [L. basis] of the Wheel.

c1680   E. Hickeringill Hist. Whiggism in Wks. (1716) I. 25   He is ground-fast and safe, that keeps to this certain Principle of Truth.

1720   D. Campbell in Hist. Life & Adventures D. Campbell Ep. Ded. p. xii   In Yorkshire they kneel on a Ground-fast Stone..and say, All hail to the Moon.

1891   J. C. Atkinson Last of Giant-killers 215   Earth and sods and ground~fast rocks.

  ground-fielding  n. fielding or stopping a cricket-ball near the ground.

1884   I. Bligh in Lillywhite's Cricketers' Ann. 5   Our ground fielding was both brilliant and effective.

  ground-fish  n. a fish which lives at the bottom of the water.

1856   S. P. Woodward Man. Mollusca iii. 426   Immense quantities of Crustacea and shell-fish are taken with the trawl, as well as ground-fish.

1883   E. P. Ramsay Food Fishes New S. Wales 13   The Flathead is a ground-fish, but is found on a sandy bottom only.

  ground-fishery  n. fishing with the bait at or near the bottom of the water.

1856   S. P. Woodward Man. Mollusca iii. 427   In North Britain an extensive ground-fishery is conducted by means of long lines,—often a mile in length.

  ground-fishing  n. = ground-fishery n.

1833   J. Rennie Alphabet Sci. Angling 64   It requires a finer top for fly-fishing than for trolling or ground-fishing.

  ground-flat  n. = ground-floor n.

1865   Daily Tel. 8 July   In the consulting-room on the ground-flat.

  ground force  n. Military = land-force n.; also attributive.

1929   F. P. Gibbons Red Napoleon ix. 222   The ground forces were exposed constantly day and night to bomb and gas attacks from above.

1951   Ann. Reg. 1950 322   Our people's ground forces must be strengthened continuously so that they can defeat any aggression.

1959   N.Z. Listener 17 Apr. 6/3   The reduction in the ground forces of the United States and Britain impairs their ability to fight limited wars.

1965   H. Kahn On Escalation vi. 128   Tactical nuclear weapons were a relatively small part of the NATO ground-force structure.

  ground frost  n. (also ground-frost) a frost on the surface of the ground, or in the upper layer of the soil (see also quot. 1963 for ground-bass n.).

1900   Daily News 12 Oct. 5/1   Towards night, the thermometer fell briskly, and it seemed probable that a sharp ground frost would occur.

1958   H. M. Hayward & M. Harari tr. B. Pasternak Dr. Zhivago ii. viii. 249   Probably there's still ground frost in the mornings.

1963   Meteorol. Gloss. (Meteorol. Office) (ed. 4) 122   From 1906 to 1960, inclusive, the [British] Meteorological office practice was to record a ‘ground frost’ when the grass minimum thermometer reached 30°F or below... From 1 January 1961..no statistics have referred to ‘ground frost’. The use of the term ‘ground frost’ in forecasts signifies a grass minimum temperature below 0°C (32°F).

  ground-game  n. game which lives on the ground, as hares and rabbits.

1872   Spectator 5 Oct. 1262   To give the occupant a right to kill ground-game (i.e., hares and rabbits).

1895   Law Times 13 July 255   The Ground Game Act, 1880.

  ground gripper  n. U.S. a shoe made so as to give the wearer a secure footing.

1927   Sat. Evening Post (N.Y.) 24 Dec. 24/3   One day the boys would train on pemmican. The next day they would run in moccasins. Then they would discard the leather ground-grippers and skip around barefoot.

  ground-grue  n. dialect = ground-ice n.

1835   Farquharson in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 125 330   [At Alford] they call it ground-gru; gru being the term by which they designate snow saturated with, or swimming in water.

† ground-hold  n. Obsolete the anchors of a vessel.

1596   E. Spenser Second Pt. Faerie Queene vi. iv. sig. Cc   Like as a ship with dreadfull storme long tost, Hauing spent all her mastes and her ground-hold .  

† ground-hop  n. Obsolete a leap from the ground, in quot figurative.

1602   R. Carew Surv. Cornwall i. f. 37   Nay thei [farms] are taken mostly at a ground-hop, before they fall, for feare of comming too late.

  ground-itch  n. (see quot.).

1823   J. Thacher Mil. Jrnl. 177   Men infected with the ground itch generated by laying on the ground.

  ground-joint  n. the joining of one stone or course in masonry with the ground or course immediately below.

1793   J. Smeaton Narr. Edystone Lighthouse (ed. 2) §149   The ground joint of the work with the rock.

1793   J. Smeaton Narr. Edystone Lighthouse (ed. 2) §199   The ground joint, or under-bed of each stone.

  ground-joist  n. a joist supporting the ground floor of a building ( Dict. Archit. 1851).

  ground-keeper  n.  (a) Cricket = groundsman n.;  (b) a root vegetable accidentally left in the ground during harvesting.

1876   A. Haygarth's Cricket Scores & Biogr. V. 16   [G. H. Wright was engaged] on the Bramhall Ground, at Sheffield, where he still remains as groundkeeper.

1938   Nature 17 Sept. 530/1   Future policy..should aim at..the suppression of ground-keepers, always a fertile source of virus infection [in potatoes].

1961   New Scientist 30 Mar. 795/3   The mild winter has also meant that more beet crowns, ‘groundkeepers’ (the beet missed by the lifting machines), and common weeds infected by the virus will have lasted through the winter.

  ground-landlord  n. the owner of the land which is leased for building on.

1719   D. Defoe Farther Adventures Robinson Crusoe 50   If they were Ground-Landlords, he hoped, if they built Tenements upon their Land..they would..grant them a long Lease.

1848   J. S. Mill Princ. Polit. Econ. II. v. iii. §6. 379   A tax on ground-rent, one would suppose, must fall on the ground landlord.

  ground-layer  n.  †(a) one who lays a foundation;  (b) in Pottery, etc., the workman who lays the ‘ground’ (sense 6b); similarly ground-laying n.

1603   King James VI & I Speech Parl. (1604) sig. B   Hee was also the first ground-layer of the other Peace.

1884   C. T. Davis Pract. Treat. Manuf. Bricks 89   In fine enamelling, ground-laying is the first process.

1898   Daily News 8 June 2/5   Employed as a ground-layer at Stoke.

  ground-leaf  n. a leaf, spec. of a tobacco plant, growing next to the ground.

1640   in Maryland Arch. 98   Bad Tobacco shall be judged ground leafes [etc.].

1784   J. F. D. Smyth Tour U.S.A. II. 136   In stripping they are careful to throw away all the ground leaves, and faulty tobacco.

1850   Ann. Rep. Commissioner Patents 1849: Agric. 320 in U.S. Congress. Serial Set (31st Congr., 1st Sess.: House of Representatives Executive Doc. 20, Pt. 2) VI   ‘Ground leaves’ are those leaves at the bottom of the plant which become dry on the stalk, and ought to be gathered early in the morning when they will not crumble.

1851   E. B. Browning Casa Guidi Windows i. vi. 15   To let the ground-leaves of the place confer A natural bowl.

  ground level n. Physics = ground state n.; (see also Compounds 1a   above).

1923   H. L. Brose tr. A. J. W. Sommerfeld Atomic Struct. & Spectral Lines vi. 325   In our diagram the absorption lines would have to be represented by arrows that start out from the natural or ground level and are directed upwards.

1953   L. H. Aller Astrophysics 25   The excitation potential in ev is the potential through which a bombarding electron must drop in order to acquire sufficient energy to excite an atom from the ground level to the level in question.

  ground-mail  n. Scottish payment for burying-ground.

1819   W. Scott Bride of Lammermoor x, in Tales of my Landlord 3rd Ser. II. 240   ‘Reasonable charges?’ said the sexton; ‘ou, there's ground-mail, and bell-siller..and the kist.’

  ground-mass  n. the compact basal part of an igneous rock, in which the distinctive crystals are imbedded.

1879   F. Rutley Study of Rocks x. 168   In many cases felsite, or the groundmass of porphyries, consists of a microscopically fine-grained aggregate.

† ground-measure  n. Obsolete ? a dance set to a ‘ground’ or ground-bass.

1621   B. Jonson Masque of Augures 145   Very sufficient Beares, as any..and can dance..and play their owne tunes..the Beareward offers to play them with any Citie-Dancers, christned, for a ground measure.

  ground-moraine  n. subglacial till, boulder-clay; also attributive.

1863   A. C. Ramsay Physical Geol. & Geogr. Great Brit. (1878) xxiv. 395   Ground-moraine matter, the moraine profonde of Swiss and French authors.

1880   A. R. Wallace Island Life ix. 169   The ground-moraine, consisting of mud and imbedded stones.

  ground-net  n. a trawl or drag-net ( Cent. Dict.).

1889   Cent. Dict. III. 2636/2   Ground-net.

  ground-niche  n. a niche having its base on a level with the floor or ground (Chambers Cycl. 1741, at Niche).

  ground noise  n. in sound reproduction, noise that is introduced by the recording medium (e.g. needle hiss on a gramophone record).

1929   Trans. Soc. Motion Picture Engin. 13 53   Ground noise, any noise due to foreign matter or imperfections in or on the film arising during manufacture, processing or handling; does not include amplifier or photoelectric cell noises.

1938   Motion Picture Sound Engin. (Acad. Motion Pict. Arts & Sci.) iv. 44   Such a system..will differ from the ideal in several respects, one of which is the introduction of ‘ground noise’ during the recording process.

1942   Electronic Engin. 14 709   The fundamental failing of the disk is the fact that reproduction of the full frequency range recorded involves the production of atrocious scratch... We must not regard this ground noise as a defect altogether beyond improvement.

  ground-note  n. Music (see quot. 1877); also figurative.

1877   J. Stainer Harmony vii. §77   The note on which a common chord is built..is called by some the Fundamental Bass, by others the Root or Ground-note.

1878   N. Amer. Rev. 126 305   Seriousness is..the ground-note of his temperament.

  ground-officer  n. one who has charge of the grounds and lands of an estate.

1815   W. Scott Guy Mannering I. vii. 110   Their asses were poinded by the ground-officer when left in the plantations.

† ground-pillar  n. Obsolete a supporting pillar.

?a1500   Nominale (Yale Beinecke 594) in T. Wright & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab. (1884) I. 779/15   Hec basys, the grownd-pelyr.

  ground pin  n. a main pin or beam in any structure.

1632   J. Vicars tr. Virgil XII Aeneids ii. 44   We..hack in twain The joyn'd crosse beams, and rais'd the ground-pins main.

a1634   W. Austin Devotionis Augustinianæ Flamma (1635) 284   The ground-Pins of this Cottage begin to faile.

1843   J. C. Frémont Rep. Explor. Rocky Mts. (1845) 54   Our lodge had been planted, and, on account of the heat, the ground pins had been taken out, and the lower part slightly raised.

† ground-pinning  n. Obsolete underpinning.

1448   Acct. in Berks, Bucks & Oxon Archæol. Jrnl. (1907) 13 51   Item, we payde for groude [read grounde] pynnyng & mete & drynke iiii d.

1507–8   in R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. (1886) I. 415   Cronall laboranti circa facturam muri superioris coquine, et grownde-pynnyng, et circa tegulacionem coquine.

1763   R. Forster in Philos. Trans. 1762 (Royal Soc.) 52 476   The ground-pinning of some houses, which had been burnt down.

  ground-plane  n. the horizontal plane of projection in perspective drawing.

1833   J. F. W. Herschel Astronomy viii. 271   The ecliptic is the plane to which an inhabitant of the earth most naturally refers the rest of the solar system, as a sort of ground-plane.

1859   J. R. Dicksee School Perspective i. v. 32   Ground plane, the plane on which objects to be represented stand.

† ground-planked adj. Obsolete ? having beds on the floor.

1632   W. Lithgow Totall Disc. Trav. viii. 360   I stayed in a Spaniards house..who kept a roguish Taverne, and a ground planked Hospitality.

  ground-plumbing  n. (see quot.).

1704   Dict. Rusticum   Ground-plumbing; is to find out the depth of Water in fishing.

  ground-provisions  n. root-crops suitable for food, as yams, potatoes, etc.

1827   O. W. Roberts Narr. Voy. Central Amer. 108   The raising of stock, and cultivation of ground provisions.

  ground-retted adj. dew-retted.

1898   Daily News 22 Oct. 9/6   Water and ground retted flaxes.

  ground return  n. U.S. = earth return n. 1.

1893   E. J. Houston Electr. Transmiss. Intell. i. 9   The line wire or conductor may form what is technically known as a ground-return circuit.

1893   E. J. Houston Electr. Transmiss. Intell. i. 10   This is..called a ground-return, because the ground acts as the return conductor.

1968   D. G. Fink & J. M. Carroll Standard Handbk. Electr. Engineers (ed. 10) xiv. 3   In d-c transmission ground return can be used as one conductor. This means that each separately insulated transmission conductor, together with the ground-return path, forms a separate electric circuit.

  ground-room  n. a room on the ground-floor.

1662   J. Davies tr. A. Olearius Voy. & Trav. Ambassadors 294   The ground-rooms of the House.

1798   M. Edgeworth & R. L. Edgeworth Pract. Educ. I. x. 267   Locked up in a ground room.

  ground-rope  n. a rope by which the lower edge of a trawl is kept on the ground.

1874   E. W. H. Holdsworth Deep-sea Fishing i. 58   The curved lower margin of the mouth of the trawl is fastened to and protected by the ‘ground rope’. This..answers the useful purpose of keeping the edge of the net on the ground.

  ground-row  n. a row of gas-jets on the floor of a theatre-stage.

1881   Daily News 28 Dec. 2/1   The light distributed about the stage from concealed ‘battens’ and ‘ground rows’.

  ground rule  n.  (a) Sport a rule devised for a particular ground;  (b) a basic principle.

1890   H. C. Palmer Stories of Base Ball Field 70   In the olden days there was a ground rule which only allowed two bases for a hit over this fence.

1953   Manch. Guardian Weekly 27 Aug. 1   Ground rules of American press-conferences.

1965   G. McInnes Road to Gundagai vi. 104   His ground~rules were so elastic.

1967   M. McLuhan & Q. Fiore Medium is Massage 68   The groundrules, pervasive structure, and overall patterns of environments elude easy perception.

† ground-salt  n. Obsolete a movement in the manege (see quot.).

1614   G. Markham Cheape & Good Husbandry (1668) i. ii. 23   To pass them about in ground-salts, as by taking up his fore-Legs from the ground both together, and bringing his hinder Feet into their place.

  ground-seine  n. a form of seine or drag-net.

1874   E. W. H. Holdsworth Deep-sea Fishing iv. 157   Seans may be divided into three classes, namely, the sean proper,..the ‘tuck-sean’, and the ‘ground or foot-sean’.

  ground-sheet  n. a waterproof sheet for spreading on the ground as a protection against damp.

1907   Daily Chron. 15 Mar. 9/5   Groundsheet (waterproof).

1928   Daily Express 12 May 5/5   Some of the motorists were having tea in the cars, and some had spread ground~sheets and cushions on the ground.

1959   S. Clark Puma's Claw v. 65   We could not afford heavy luxuries like..groundsheets.

1970   Which? May 132/1   The other half of the outer tent (the living room) does not have a groundsheet.

  ground-sluice  n. Mining (see quot. 1869).

1869   R. B. Smyth Gold Fields Victoria 612   Ground-sluice, a channel cut in the bottom or bed-rock, into which the earth is conveyed by a stream of water.

  ground-sluice  v. to wash down earth by means of a stream of water.

1862   J. G. Walker Jrnl. Voy. N.Z. (1863) [1] Jan.   We..watched a man ground-sluicing.

1879   R. J. Atcherley Trip to Boërland 138   Our host took us to his workings, where he was ground-sluicing.

  ground-sluicing  n.

1857   Hutching's Mag. July 8/1   Among the more important operations connected with gold mining upon an extensive scale, is ‘ground sluicing’.

1860   Harper's Mag. Apr. 612/2   Ground-sluicing accomplishes the same result..with the chance of obtaining from the upper earth some gold, which..would be lost by the first plan.

1865   V. Pyke in App. Jrnls. House of Representatives N.Z. (5th Sess. 3rd Parl.) C.–4 a. 10   Of the various methods of working, that of ground sluicing is most universally adopted—a ground sluice being nothing more than a rectangular drain cut for a depth of about a foot into the surface soil.

1874   A. Bathgate Colonial Experiences viii. 91   In Otago, the principal kind of mining is ground-sluicing..similar to the method of working for tin in Cornwall.

† ground-smooth adj. Obsolete level with the ground.

?1520   A. Barclay tr. Sallust Cron. Warre agaynst Iugurth liv. f. 76   Whan Marius cam to any such towne..he set fyre in them and brent them grounde smothe.

† ground-sope  n. Obsolete (= Dutch grond-sop), dregs, sediment (quots. c725, 14.. are obscure, perhaps mistranslations; Palsgrave's rendering may be an error).

c725   Corpus Gloss. (Hessels) C 186   Cartilago, grundsopa.

14..   in T. Wright & R. P. Wülcker Anglo-Saxon & Old Eng. Vocab. (1884) I. 717/36   Hoc suber, intima pars corticis, Hoc abdomen, grundsope.

c1440   Promptorium Parvulorum 216/1   Growndesope of any lycoure..fex, sedimen.

1530   J. Palsgrave Lesclarcissement 228/1   Grounde soppe in lycoure, payn trempé.

  ground-space  n. the area of ground occupied by a structure.

1866   Chambers's Jrnl. 18 Aug. 521/2   The houses..are large.., with very little accommodation, considering the ground-space they occupy.

1908   Westm. Gaz. 28 Mar. 9/2   All citizens are users or consumers of air, water, ground-space.

† ground-stand  n. Obsolete a standing place in the pit of a theatre.

1659   Lady Alimony i. iv. sig. B2   All our Galleries and Ground-stands are long ago furnished.

  ground state  n.  [translating German grundzustand, lit. ‘fundamental state’] Physics the stationary state of lowest energy of a quantized system (as an atom or molecule).

1926   H. H. L. A. Brose tr. A. J. W. Sommerfeld Three Lect. Atomic Physics ii. 35   To every electron in its ground state there belongs an original momentum s = ½.

1946   Nature 26 Oct. 593/2   To evaluate D for a diatomic gas, it is necessary to examine the vibrational energy-levels of the ground-state.

1963   B. Fozard Instrumentation Nucl. Reactors ii. 13   This is duly emitted as radiant energy as the excited electrons return to the ground state.

† ground-statheling  n. Obsolete = ground-stathelness n.

  ground-stathelness  n. foundations.

a1300   E.E. Psalter cxxxvi. 7   Vnto þe grond-staþelnes [v.r. groun~staþelinge] in it.

  ground station  n. Radio a complex of buildings where radio and radar equipment is used in connection with aeronautical and aerospace projects.

1919   Radio Rev. Dec. 105   On aeroplanes, the problem of the reception of wireless signals is complicated... There is always so much noise that signals must be of much greater intensity than at ground stations in order to be of any use.

1920   Flight 10 June 624/1   Radio-Telephony.. Procedure.—Ground to air and vice versa. The following illustrates the procedure adopted for work between a ground and an air station.

1966   Electronics 14 Nov. 58   The ground station, which was publicly introduced Nov. 10 in Melbourne, Fla., is also behind schedule and running 40% over cost expectations.

  ground-story  n. = ground-floor n.

1657   R. Ligon True Hist. Barbados 103   You shall feele that heat above..in the ground stories below, though your sieling be a foot thick.

1823   P. Nicholson New Pract. Builder 307   Brick walls in the basement and ground-stories of buildings.

  ground-strake  n. = garboard strake at garboard n.   (Smyth Sailor's Word-bk. 1867).

1867   W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor's Word-bk.   Ground-strake.

  ground-stroke  n. Tennis a stroke played near the ground, after the ball has hit the court.

1895   H. W. W. Wilberforce Lawn Tennis 51   There are two ways in which a ground-stroke may be taken, namely, at the top of the bound, and again quite late, when the ball is near the ground.

1970   Times 5 June 14/6   His services and ground strokes were hit to a good length.

  ground-substance  n. Physiology the homogeneous matrix in which the structural elements of a tissue are embedded.

1882   Quain's Elements Anat. (ed. 9) II. 58   The ground-substance, matrix or intercellular substance of the connective tissue.

  ground-sweat  n. slang the grave; to take a ground-sweat, to lie in the grave.

1699   B. E. New Dict. Canting Crew   Grownd-Sweat, a Grave.

1834   F. Mahony Rel. Father Prout (1836) II. 117   We waked him in clover, And sent him to take a ground-sweat.

  ground-sype  n. (see quot.).

1839   W. B. Stonehouse Hist. Isle of Axholme 25   The water..is not spring water, but merely what is termed a ground sype, i.e. water filtering through from the surface.

  ground-table  n. Architecture the plinth or projecting course resting on the foundation of a wall; an earth-table.

1640   in R. Willis & J. W. Clark Archit. Hist. Univ. Cambr. (1886) I. 97   Plinth and Ground-table for ye South Range.

  ground-tier  n.  (a) the lowest tier of goods in a vessel's hold (Young Naut. Dict. 1846);  (b) the lowest range of boxes in a theatre.

1820   W. Scoresby Acct. Arctic Regions II. 305   The hold of the ship must be cleared of its superstructure of casks, until the ‘ground-tier’, or lowest stratum of casks, is exposed.

  ground-timbers  n. the main timbers laid on the keel of a ship, floor-timbers.

1627   J. Smith Sea Gram. ii. 2   Before you vse any plankes, they lay the Rungs, called floore timbers, or ground timbers, thwart the keele.

1793   J. Smeaton Narr. Edystone Lighthouse (ed. 2) §85   The interior ground timbers.

1881   L. R. Hamersly Naval Encycl. , Ground-timber   In making up the frame of a wooden ship, the timbers of the lower course are called ground-timbers.

  ground-tissue n. Botany the mass of cells separating the vascular bundles from each other and from the epidermis.

1882   S. H. Vines tr. J. von Sachs Text-bk. Bot. (ed. 2) 482   A loose spongy parenchyma..sharply defined from the firm compact ground-tissue.

1895   J. R. Green Man. Bot. I. 329   A mass of cells which constitutes the ground or fundamental tissue.

† ground-toiled adj. Obsolete field-working.

1632   W. Lithgow Totall Disc. Trav. viii. 359   Arabs, who falling downe from the Mountaines..upon the ground toyled Moores [etc.].

  ground-torpedo  n. a torpedo fixed to the ground or bottom of the sea.

1878   N. Amer. Rev. 127 389   The ground-torpedo is fired by a wire connected with a battery from the shore.

  ground-tow  n. (see quot. 1794   and cf. 3b   above).

1669   J. Cox in St. Papers, Dom. 574   The ground tow sold to Mr. Gould is not fetched away.

1794   D. Steel Elements & Pract. Rigging & Seamanship I. 54   Ground-tow, the loose hemp that comes from the sides of the hatchellers and spinners.

† ground-wart  n. Obsolete a small eminence resembling a wart.

1568   C. Watson tr. Polybius Hystories f. 68   This hill is straitly incompassed with stepe rocks, hauing a plain on ye very tippe..in ye midst there is a ground wart, which serueth for ye watch-house.

  ground-water n. (see quots.).

1890   Nature 27 Nov. 94   Mr. Latham defines ‘ground water’ as all water found in the surface soil of the crust of the earth, except such as may be in combination with the materials forming the crust of the earth.

  ground wave  n. the radio wave that passes from a transmitter to a receiver other than by reflection from the ionosphere, comprising one or more of the direct wave, the ground-reflected wave, and the surface-wave; also attributive.

1927   E. V. Appleton in Wireless World 5 Jan. 3/2   There is a very real difference between a ground wave and an atmospheric wave if we consider the magnetic force in the wave as well as the electric wave. For a horizontally travelling ground wave, such as that which travels direct from transmitter to receiver, [etc.].

1941   K. Henney Radio Engin. Handbk. (ed. 3) xv. 514   The signal..may have been propagated either by the ground wave, which travels along the earth's surface, or by the sky wave.

1943   F. E. Terman Radio Engineers' Handbk. x. 675   The surface wave..represents the whole of the ground wave when both transmitting and receiving antennas are located at the surface of the earth.

1965   BBC Handbk. 115   The signals which carry domestic broadcasting programmes are usually designed to be received by ground-wave on medium and long waves.

1965   BBC Handbk. 115   Ground-wave propagation of short waves is not feasible over long distances.

  ground-ways  n. (see quots.).

1711   W. Sutherland Ship-builders Assistant 160   Ground-ways; large Pieces of Timber lying a-thwart the Bottom of a Dock, or Launch, to make the Foundation firm and substantial.

1867   W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor's Word-bk.   Ground ways, the large blocks and thick planks which support the cradle on which a ship is launched. Also, the foundation whereon a vessel is built.

† ground-wind  n. Obsolete a wind blowing at the level of the sea; opposed to rack-wind.

1618   S. Ward Iethro's Iustice of Peace 56   It is the ground-winde, not the rack-winde, that driues mills and ships.

1620   T. Scott High-waies of God (1633) 16   It is for me to observe the ground-winde, not the rack-winde.

  ground wire  n. Telegraphy  (a) (see quot. 1892);  (b) U.S. an earth wire, i.e. a wire that is connected to earth, either directly or through another earthed conductor (the usual sense).

1892   T. O'C. Sloane Standard Electr. Dict. (1893) 281   Ground-wire, a metaphorical term applied to the earth when used as a return circuit.

1910   N. Hawkins Electr. Dict.   Ground Wire.

1922   J. C. Wright Automotive Repair II. 208   If the ground wire is disconnected the generator will build up an excessive pressure within itself.

1966   McGraw-Hill Encycl. Sci. & Technol. (rev. ed.) XIV. 54/1   Lines built where severe thunderstorms are prevalent are equipped with overhead ground wires..for intercepting the lightning stroke and leading it to ground at the nearest tower.

  ground-worm  n. an earth-worm.

1599   A. M. tr. O. Gaebelkhover Bk. Physicke 158/2   For the Dropsye. Take groundewormes, choppe..them smalle [etc.]

1708   Colonial Rec. N. Carolina I. 682   The Fly, the ground worme, the house wormes [etc.].

1770   in Maryland Hist. Mag. 12 362   There are such Quantities of ground wormes, that I am afraid it will be difficult to get our tobacco Plants to stand when favoured with a Season.

1830   T. Carlyle in Foreign Rev. Jan. 29   Fools that we are! To dig, and bore like ground-worms.

1844   R. W. Emerson New Eng. Reformers in Wks. (1906) I. 259   Ground-worms, slugs, and mosquitos.

  ground zero  n. that part of the ground situated immediately under an exploding bomb, esp. an atomic one.

1946   N.Y. Times 7 July E10/1   The intense heat of the blast started fires as far as 3,500 feet from ‘ground zero’.

1955   Bull. Atomic Scientists Sept. 255/1   There was no noticeable contamination even at ground zero at Hiroshima.

 b. In names of animals (denoting generally, in regard to birds, those of terrestrial habits; in regard to other animals, those that burrow, or lie in holes or on the ground). Also ground-bird n., ground-hog n., ground-squirrel n.

  ground-bear  n. the common brown bear, Ursus arctos (Cassell, 1884).

  ground-bee  n. a bee that nests in the ground.

1849   C. Brontë Shirley III. ii. 36   The nest..of some ground-bees, who had burrowed in the turf under an old cherry-tree.

1890   F. D. Lugard Diary 17 Apr. (1959) I. 195   Found ground bees' nest, and tried to dig it out, but it was some 16 inches down.

  ground-beetle  n. a general name for all beetles of the family Carabidæ.

1848   Rural Cycl. II. 532   Ground beetle, a coleopterous insect, whose larva is found in corn-fields.

  ground-cuckoo  n. a member of one of the four genera of Neomorphinæ, a subfamily of the Cuculidæ.

1883   Cassell's Nat. Hist. IV. 134   The Malays..capture..Ground Cuckoos.

1895   R. B. Sharpe in R. Lydekker Royal Nat. Hist. IV. 11   The four genera of ground-cuckoos, all of which are terrestrial birds with powerful feet for running.

  ground-dove  n. a dove or pigeon of terrestrial habits, esp. of the genera Chamæpelia and Geopelia (cf. ground-pigeon n.).

1792   M. Riddell Voy. Madeira 60   Five kinds of doves are natives of Antigua, of which the ramier and the ground dove are the most beautiful.

1885   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. IV. 247   The ground-doves, little creatures which pass their time on the ground almost exclusively.

  ground-finch  n.  (a) a bird of Swainson's sub-family Fringillinæ or true finches;  (b) an American finch of the genus Pipilo ( Cent. Dict.).

1837   W. Swainson On Nat. Hist. & Classif. Birds II. 122   The Fringillinæ may correctly be termed ground finches; since, with scarcely an exception, they are all birds which habitually walk or hop in such situations.

  ground-flicker  n. the genus Soroplex of woodpeckers.

1884–5   Riverside Nat. Hist. (1888) IV. 428   The South American ground flickers.

  ground-gudgeon  n. the loach.

1867   W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor's Word-bk.   Ground-gudgeon, a little fish, the Cobitis barbatula.

1880–4   F. Day Fishes Great Brit. & Ireland II. 204   The loach..ground-bait or ground-gudgeon, Northumberland.

  ground-hornbill  n. the African genus Bucorvus (or Bucorax) of horn-bills.

1883   Cassell's Nat. Hist. III. 355   The Ground Hornbills (Bucorax). These are an African form, of which there are two or three kinds.

  ground-hornet  n. a hornet that has its nest on the ground.

1822   Z. Hawley Tour 95   A nest of ground hornets, concealed under the logway.

1888   J. Inglis Tent Life Tigerland 68   I have known an elephant to bolt..through the attacks of wasps or ground hornets.

  ground-lackey  n. (see quots.).

1869   E. Newman Illustr. Nat. Hist. Brit. Moths (1874) 42   The Ground Lackey (Bombyx castrensis)..Very abundant in the Isle of Sheppey.

  ground-lark  n. (see quots.).

1848   Zoologist 6 2290   The tree pipit is the ‘ground lark’.

1849   Zoologist 7 2354   The bunting is the ‘ground lark’.

  ground-lizard  n. (see quots.).

1792   M. Riddell Voy. Madeira 65   The ground lizard is commonly of the colour of the earth on which it creeps.

1885   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. III. 432   Ameiva dorsalis, the ground lizard, is one of the most abundant lizards in Jamaica.

  ground-mite  n. (see quots.).

1847   W. B. Carpenter Zool.: Systematic Acct. II. §840   The Trombiidæ, or Ground-Mites, are distinguished by having the palpi converted into raptorial organs.

  ground-mouse  n. U.S. a field mouse of the genus Reithrodontomys.

1839   J. Buel Farmer's Compan. 99   Moles or ground-mice cannot penetrate and find a shelter.

1883   Harper's Mag. Aug. 462/2   A storm of expletives that must have startled the ground-mice and the birds.

  ground-parrakeet  n. any bird of the genera Geopsittacus and Pezoporus.

1865   J. Gould Handbk. Birds Austral. II. 87   The Ground-Parrakeet is diffused over the whole of the southern portions of Australia, including Tasmania.

1885   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. IV. 356   The crested ground-parakeet (Callipsittacus novæ-hollandiæ).

  ground-parrot  n.  (a) = ground-parrakeet n.;  (b) the Kakapo of New Zealand ( Strigops habroptilus).

1794   G. Shaw Zool. New Holland 10   Psittacus terrestris. The Ground Parrot.

1827   N. A. Vigors & T. Horsfield in Trans. Linn. Soc. 15 278   Psittacus pulchellus... The settlers call it Ground Parrot.

1885   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. IV. 351   The single genus Geopsittacus..is the ground-parrot of Southern and Western Australia.

1895   Pop. Sci. Monthly Apr. 776   The Kakapo of New Zealand..also known as the ‘owl parrot’ or ‘ground parrot’.

  ground-pearl  n. (see quots.).

1884   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. II. 218   Another [bug] is the curious ‘Ground Pearl’ of the Bahama Islands. It lives beneath the soil in crevices frequented by ants, and acquires a shell-like calcareous scaly covering.

  ground-pig  n. (see quots.).

1883   Cassell's Nat. Hist. III. 133   In Sierra Leone it [Aulacodus Swinderianus] is known as the Ground Rat, or Ground Pig.

  ground-pigeon  n. a pigeon which passes most of its time on the ground; esp. one of the family Gouridæ; also = ground-dove n.

1885   Challenger Rep. I. ii. 535   A little Ground Pigeon (Geopelia), not much bigger than a sparrow.

1885   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. IV. 242   The Gouridæ comprises the great ground-pigeons..They are natives of the Papuan Archipelago.

  ground-pike  n. the sauger ( S. canadense).

1890   Cent. Dict. at Pike   Ground-pike.

  ground-puppy  n. = hellbender n.

1863   J. G. Wood Illustr. Nat. Hist. (new ed.) III. 185   A large array of names, among which are Tweeg, Hellbender, Mud Devil, and Ground Puppy.

  ground-rat  n. (see ground-pig n.).

  ground rattler  n. U.S. (see quot. ).

1908   Daily Chron. 29 Aug. 7/5   The red dog..jumped a ground-rattler.

1931   R. L. Ditmars Snakes of World x. 105   The Pygmy Rattlesnake or ‘Ground’ Rattler, Sistrurus miliarius, seldom more than sixteen to twenty inches long, has a rattle so minute it would be unnoticed outside a distance of about eight feet.

  ground-robin  n. U.S. any of several small American buntings, esp. the most common one, Pipilo erythrophthalmus; see chewink n.

1794   Philos. Soc. Trans. 4 110   This bird was the chewink, or ground robin.

1844   J. E. De Kay Zool. N.-Y. ii. 172 (heading)    The Chewink or Ground Robin. Pipilo Erythrophthalmus.

1844   J. E. De Kay Zool. N.-Y. ii. 172   This beautiful and unobtrusive little species is..known..under the name of Ground Robin.

1877   W. Whitman Specimen Days (1892) 100   Let me make a list of those [birds] I find here [in New Jersey]. Ground robins.

1955   Sci. News Let. 23 Apr. 271   The towhee is a bird of many aliases. ‘Ground robin’ is a popular name, and justified by his deceptively robin-like appearance.

  ground-roller  n. (see quot. and roller n.1).

1883   Cassell's Nat. Hist. III. 364   In Madagascar..there are found the Ground Rollers (Atelornis), extraordinary birds which live entirely on the ground, and only come out at dusk.

  ground-scratcher  n. a name for the Rasores or gallinaceous birds.

1840   E. Blyth et al. tr. G. Cuvier Animal Kingdom (1849) 251   Rasores (ground-scratchers)—the Poultry.

  ground-seal  n. a large species of seal.

1868   R. Brown in Proc. Zool. Soc. 427   The Grey Seal,..possibly this species may be confounded with the ‘Ground-Seal’.

1880   Standard 20 May 3   The ‘ground seal’, the largest of all the species.

  ground-shark  n. any species of shark that rarely comes to the surface, esp. the spinous shark ( Echinorrhinus spinosus).

1834   F. Marryat Peter Simple II. x. 168   There are several kinds of sharks, but the most dangerous are the great white shark and the ground shark.

1885   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. III. 76   The sleeper shark Somniosus microcephala..By the fishermen it is known as ground-shark or gurry-shark.

  ground-sloth  n. one of an extinct group of New World herbivorous mammals of the group Edentata, intermediate between the existing sloths and ant-eaters.

1860   Owen (title)    Memoir on the Megatherium, or Giant Ground-Sloth of America.

1896   B.M. Guide Fossil Mammals 69   The entire skeleton of the great extinct ‘Ground Sloth’.

  ground-snake  n. (see quots.).

1885   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. III. 362   The genus Carphophis is very generally distributed; in the United States, the species amœna,..as the thunder, ground, or worm-snake, is most familiar.

1885   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. III. 363   The Coronella australis, or the Australian ground-snake.

  ground-sparrow  n. U.S. one of several sparrows of terrestrial habits, e.g. the grass-finch and savannah-sparrow ( Cent. Dict.).

1874   B. F. Taylor World on Wheels ii. vii. 249   The ground-sparrows build in its margins.

1882   7th Vermont Agric. Rep. 1881–2 67   The blue bird, cat bird, wren and ground sparrows are acknowledged beneficial.

  ground-spearing  n. a fish ( Trachinocephalus myops) found in the tropical parts of the Western Atlantic (1896 Jordan & Everman Fishes Amer. 296).

  ground-spider  n. any kind of spider that burrows or lives under stones.

1867   G. Lincecum in Amer. Naturalist 1 410   Some of the ground spiders carry their eggs in a sack attached to the tip of their abdomen.

1880   Handbk. S. Afr. (S. W. Silver & Co.) (ed. 3) 179   One of the great ground spiders in the Karroo districts..has a body 2½ inches long.

  ground-thrush  n.  (a) a thrush of the genus Geocichla;  (b) a bird of the Australian genus Cinclosoma;  (c) the pitta or ant-thrush.

1855   J. Gould Birds Austral.: Suppl. (1869) Pl. 63   Cinctosoma castaneothorax,..this richly coloured and very distinct species of Ground Thrush.

1881   H. Seebohm Catal. Birds Brit. Mus. V. 147   The genus Geocichla comprises a well-defined group of forty Thrushes, which may be distinguished as Ground-Thrushes.

1885   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. IV. 467   The pittas, or ground-thrushes, are a group of insectivorous birds which inhabit the forests of the eastern tropics.

  ground-tit  n. a small Californian bird ( Chamæa fasciata), allied to the wrens and titmice.

1885   J. S. Kingsley Standard Nat. Hist. IV. 506   The so-called ground-tit, or perhaps better wren-tit (Chamœa fasciata)..has very little in common with the true tits.

  ground-wasp  n. a wasp that has its nest on the ground.

1880   New Virginians I. 98   There is a small ground-wasp, like the English wasp in shape and colour; and a very large ground-wasp, whose sting is very vicious.

  ground woodpecker  n. a member of the family Picidæ that lives on the ground, esp. Colaptes campestris of South America and Geocolaptes olivaceus of South Africa.

1867   E. L. Layard Birds S. Afr. 238   The Sub-Family, Colaptinæ, or Ground Woodpeckers, have the bill broad at the base.

1958   E. T. Gilliard Living Birds of World 258/2   Tunnels of the Ground Woodpecker are often several feet deep.

1964   A. L. Thomson New Dict. Birds 896/2   The ‘ground woodpeckers’ prefer stumps or rotten branches where many insects (especially ants) have their favourite haunts.

  ground-wren  n.  (a) the willow wren, Sylvia trochilus;  (b) = ground-tit n.

1837   W. Macgillivray Hist. Brit. Birds II. 371   Willow Wren. Ground Wren.

 c. In names of plants, generally denoting plants dwarfish in height and sometimes those of a trailing habit. Also ground-ash n., ground-ivy n., ground-pine n.

  ground-archil  n. Lecanora parella, a species of lichen used in dyeing ( New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon 1886).

  ground-berry  n.  (a) U.S. = checker-berry n.   ( Cent. Dict.);  (b) Australian (see quot.).

1889   J. H. Maiden Useful Native Plants Austral. 8   Astroloma humifusum..and A. pinifolium..Commonly called ‘Ground~berry’.

  ground-birch  n. ? the dwarf birch (see birch n. 1b).

1885   G. M. Fenn This Man's Wife in Good Words 61   A dozen bundles of clean-looking ground-birch sticks.

  ground-box  n. Buxus sempervirens, the small variety used for edgings.

1578   H. Lyte tr. R. Dodoens Niewe Herball vi. xxxii. 699   The smal Boxe is called..in Latine, Humi Buxus: that is to say, Ground Boxe, or Dwarffe Boxe.

  ground-cedar  n. (see quot.).

1836   C. P. Traill Backwoods of Canada 120   A trailing plant bearing a near resemblance to the cedar, which..has..a claim to the name of ground or creeping cedar.

  ground-cherry  n.  (a) the Dwarf Cherry, Cerasus Chamæcerasus;  (b) an American plant of the genus Physalis.

1601   P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World I. 448   Certain dwarfe Cherries..called Chamecerasi (i. ground cherry-shrubs).

1859   J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2)    Ground cherry (Physalis),..sometimes called Winter Cherry.

† ground-chestnut  n. Obsolete (see quot.).

1693   C. Dryden in J. Dryden et al. tr. Juvenal Satires vii. 143   Treuffles, in English, call'd Ground-Chest-nuts, or Pignuts.

  ground-cistus  n. Rhododendron Chamæcistus (Paxton Bot. Dict. 1840).

  ground-cypress  n. Santolina Chamæcyparissus (Paxton Bot. Dict. 1840).

  ground-elder  n. a name for Sambucus Ebulus, Angelica silvestris, Ægopodium Podagraria (Britten & Holland Plant-n. 1879), and Mercurialis perennis (Paxton).

  ground-enell  n. (see quot. 1879).

1597   J. Gerard Herball App.   Ground Emell is Venus combe.

1879   J. Britten & R. Holland Dict. Eng. Plant-names   Ground Enell, Scandix Pecten. Hal. and Wr. print the name incorrectly Ground-evil.

  ground-fir  n. = ground-pine n.   ( Cent. Dict.).

  ground-flax  n. the genus Camelina (Paxton).

  ground flower  n. a low-growing wild flower.

1818   A. Eaton Man. Bot. (ed. 2) ii. 368   Polygala..rubella..false low-centuary, ground-flower.

1902   Daily Chron. 1 Apr. 2/1   At Easter there are but the ground-flowers.

1928   D. Cottrell Singing Gold I. vi. 50   The cup-like tufts of the little white ground-flower, with the sweetest scent in all Australia.

† ground-furze  n. Obsolete = cammock n.1

1578   H. Lyte tr. R. Dodoens Niewe Herball vi. x. 669   Cammocke or ground Furze hath many small, lythey, or weake branches.

† ground-hele  n.  [ < German grundheil] Obsolete Veronica officinalis.

1578   H. Lyte tr. R. Dodoens Niewe Herball i. xvii. 26   Paules Betony, Herbe Fluellyn, or Speede~well, Ground-hele.

  ground-hemlock  n. an American variety of the common yew, Taxus baccata.

1807   F. Pursh Jrnl. Bot. Excursion 20 July (1869) 64   Here I found..taxus braccata or procumbens, calld Ground Hemlock.

1834   J. J. Audubon Ornithol. Biogr. II. 170   The Ground Hemlock (Taxus canadensis), or Canadian Yew.

  ground-holly  n. = checker-berry n.   ( New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon).

  ground honeysuckle  n. a name for Bird's-foot Trefoil, Lotus corniculatus.

1592   R. Greene Quip for Vpstart Courtier sig. B2   A little dapper flowre, like a grounde Hunnisuckle, called thrift.

1688   R. Holme Acad. Armory ii. vi. 107/2   The Trefoil flower..is called, the ground honysuckle, the head being circle-like.

1918   L. B. Wilder Colour in my Garden 362   Lotus corniculatus—Bird's-foot-trefoil, Crow-toe, Ground-Honeysuckle.

1935   Ann. Missouri Bot. Garden 22 576   Ground Honeysuckle..Introduced in Boone and Clay counties.

  ground-jasmine  n. Passerina Stelleri ( Treasury Bot. 1866).

1848   Rural Cycl. II. 532   Ground-jasmine, an ornamental, evergreen, white-flowered, Siberian undershrub of the wild olive-tree family. It is regarded by some botanists as a Stellera, and by others as a sparrow-wort.

  ground-laurel  n. the Trailing Arbutus ( Epigæa repens) of North America.

1814   J. Bigelow Florula Bostoniensis 101   Ground laurel..grows in woods.

1867   Amer. Naturalist 1 154   In the books, this plant is known as the ‘Epigea repens’, but otherwise as the Trailing Arbutus, May Flower, and Ground Laurel.

1877   W. C. Bryant Twenty-seventh Mar. 27   Within the woods Tufts of ground-laurel,..send their sweets Up to the chilly air.

1932   P. A. Rydberg Flora Prairies & Plains Central N. Amer. 615   Epigaea L. Trailing Arbutus, Ground Laurel.

† ground liverwort  n. obsolete the lichen Peltigera canina

1597   J. Gerard Herball iii. 1375   Hepatica terrestris. Ground Liuerwoort.

1736   N. Bailey Dict. Domesticum 296   Lichen cinereus terrestris,..Ash coloured Ground Liverwort.

1746   B. Franklin 27 Mar. in Papers (1961) III. 95   He has had two fair Specimens of the English ash-colour'd Ground-Liverwort, sent him.

1811   Select Rev. & Spirit of Foreign Mag. 5 292/2   It [sc. a disease] is remedied by bathing them [sc. blisters] with a decoction of ground liverwort.

1866   J. Lindley & T. Moore Treasury Bot. II. 858/1   Peltidea, a genus of lichens the species of which are vulgarly confounded with Marchantia under the name of liverwort. The herbalists, however, distinguish them as Ground Liverwort.

† ground-myrtle  n. Obsolete Butcher's Broom ( Ruscus aculeatus).

1601   P. Holland tr. Pliny Hist. World II. 284   As for the herb Idæa, the leaues therof resemble those of ground-Myrtle or Butchers broom.

  ground-needle  n. Erodium moschatum.

a1400   Med. MS. Gloss., in Archæol. XXX. 409   Ground Nedle. Acus muscula.

1597   J. Gerard Herball App.   Groundneedle is Geranium Muscatum.

  ground-oak  n.  (a) an oak-sapling;  (b) a species of dwarf-oak.

a1723   R. Hood & Little John in F. J. Child Eng. & Sc. Pop. Ballads (1888) III. v. 135   Then Robin Hood stept to a thicket of trees, And chose him a staff of ground-oak.

1767   Bartram's Jrnl. 43 in W. Stork Acct. E. Florida (ed. 2)    Rising ground producing..bay and water-oak, then ground-oak, chamærops.

1809   A. Wilson Foresters in Port Folio Nov. 454   Waving reeds and scrubby ground-oak grew Where stores and taverns now arrest the view.

  ground pink  n. Silene virginica; see fire pink n. at fire n. and int. Compounds 2b.

1831   J. Davies Man. Materia Medica 447   Ground pink. Silene virginiana.

  ground-plum  n. (see quots.).

1859   J. R. Bartlett Dict. Americanisms (ed. 2)    Ground Plum (Astragalus caryocarpus), a plant growing on dry soil on the Mississippi River..The fruit, which is a pod, closely resembles a plum.

  ground-rattan  n. and adj. (see quots.).

1823   G. Crabb Universal Technol. Dict.   Ground-ratan, the Rhapis flabelliformis.

1866   J. Lindley & T. Moore Treasury Bot. II. 970/2   Rhapis flabelliformis is commonly called the Ground Rattan Palm, and is said to yield the walking-canes known by that name in this country.

† ground-saligot  n. Obsolete Tribulus terrestris.

1597   J. Gerard Herball Table Eng. Names   Grounde Saligot, that is Landcaltrops.

  ground-sorrel  n. (see quot.).

1776   W. Clayton in Philos. Trans. (Royal Soc.) 66 100   Ground-sorrel every where [in the Falkland Islands] abounds in the greatest plenty;..the flower it produces is exactly like the wild rose which grows in the hedges in England.

  ground-thistle  n. the cardoon ( Cynara cardunculus).

1591   R. Percyvall Bibliotheca Hispanica Dict. at Cepa cavalle   Ground thistle.

  ground-willow  n. a dwarf willow; also dialect = Polygonum amphibium (Britten & Holland).

1875   J. Croll Climate & Time xvi. 262   In a region where..the ground-willow and dwarf-birch have to struggle for existence.

  ground-yew  n. = crowberry n. 1.

1674   A. Cremer tr. J. Scheffer Hist. Lapland 141   The thin leaved heath, that bears a Berry, which some call ground Ewe.

Draft additions March 2006

  ground share  n. Sport (chiefly Association Football) = ground sharing n. at Additions; (also) an arrangement to share in this way.

1986   Guardian 3 May 12/1   Charlton, so destitute they had earlier this season..put together a ground share scheme with Crystal Palace, are heading for the first division.

2005   Blackpool Gaz. (Nexis) 14 May   The Lions are in the second season of their groundshare with Sedgley Park RUFC in Whitefield, near Bury.

Draft additions March 2006

  groundshare  v. Sport (chiefly Association Football) intransitive (of a team) to share a home ground with at least one other team, esp. temporarily.

1987   Sunday Times 8 Mar. 21/1   Clyde, who groundshare with Thistle, seem to prefer the thought of sharing with greyhounds at their old ground, Shawfield.

2003   Guardian 7 June i. 13/4   Fulham... Currently groundsharing with neighbours QPR under a two-year deal.

Draft additions March 2006

  ground sharing  n. Sport (chiefly Association Football) the sharing of a home ground by two or more teams, esp. as a temporary arrangement.

1975   Operational Res. Q. 26 811   Ground sharing could mean reduced season tickets for both clubs.

2004   Daily Record (Glasgow) (Nexis) 15 Dec. 10   He said there is no specific rule about groundsharing but added: ‘Everything comes down to a simple straight vote between the member clubs.’