groundling

Etymology

Definitions

1. 1

   Any of various plants or animals living on or near the ground, as a benthic fish or…

   Any of various plants or animals living on or near the ground, as a benthic fish or bottom feeder, especially

   • In the pond behind the garden there were plenty of carp and groundlings.
   • […] the ewe called Tiny Crossed over and touched her, the others turned anxious looks From sniffing the autumn-pinched leaves of the groundling blackberries.
   • Delgard got out the handkerchief again and blew his nose loud enough to alert any bird or groundling within several hundred yards.
2. 2

   An audience member in the cheap section (usually standing

   An audience member in the cheap section (usually standing; originally in Elizabethan theater).

   • O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise.
   • when your Groundling, and gallery-Commoner buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a Hagler, is glad to utter it againe by retailing.
   • The flag is up on the playhouse by the bankside. The bear Sackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden. Canvasclimbers who sailed with Drake chew their sausages among the groundlings.
3. 3

   A person of uncultivated or uncultured taste.

   • This is what the magnanimous National Liberal Federation have said in effect to the House of Lords, and what, it should seem, they innocently regard as likely to impress the Gladstonian groundling.
   • Millions of these have no conception of the meaning and obligation of popular government, and so they are the ready prey of demagogues and groundlings.
4. ›+ 2 more definitionsshow fewer

   1. 4

      One who is confined to the ground, especially

   2. 5

      Adam, before eating the apple of knowledge of good and evil (emphasizing his creation…

      Adam, before eating the apple of knowledge of good and evil (emphasizing his creation from the ground).

      • It is not good for the groundling to be alone I will make for it a help as its counterpart (2.18).
      • The two of them were naked, the groundling and his woman, they were not ashamed.
      • It isn't until three chapters later that this groundling receives a name—Adam; at that point, the groundling is no longer referred to as “it” in the text, but becomes “him.”

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