Word.ws English Dictionary

break ground

break ground verb: to begin digging in the earth at the start of a new construction, or, originally, for cultivation.

break ground: to begin digging in the earth at the start of a new construction, or, originally, for cultivation
Image: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Sacramento District, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

break ground (third-person singular simple present breaks ground, present participle breaking ground, simple past broke ground, past participle broken ground)

  1. (literally) To begin digging in the earth at the start of a new construction, or, originally, for cultivation.
    • They broke ground on the new library last month.
    • Try to break a little more land every year; sod corn is good for fodder. Keep turning the land, and always put up more hay than you need.1913, Willa Cather, O Pioneers!, chapter 2
  2. (figuratively) To initiate a new venture, or to advance beyond previous achievements.
    • The invention breaks ground in its programming and its structure.
    • Remedy Place, which calls itself “the world’s first social wellness club,” broke ground in the West Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles before opening its first location in New York last year.2023 November 6, Eliza Shapiro, “Inside the Private World the Richest New Yorkers Built for Themselves”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
  3. To lift off the sea bottom when being weighed.
  4. To separate from the ground on takeoff; to become airborne.

Forms of break ground

third-person singular presentbreaks ground
present participlebreaking ground
pastbroke ground
past participlebroken ground
alternative formbreak land

Questions about break ground

What does break ground mean?
Break ground means to begin digging in the earth at the start of a new construction, or, originally, for cultivation.
What part of speech is break ground?
Break ground is a verb.
What is the past tense of break ground?
The past tense of break ground is broke ground.

Words near break ground in the dictionary

  1. break figure
  2. break figures
  3. break free
  4. break from
  5. break gates
  6. break ground
  7. break in
  8. break into
  9. break into a run
  10. break it
  11. break it down

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: break ground (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-break ground.ogg.

Cite this entry: “break ground.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/break_ground. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.