Word.ws English Dictionary

get off the ground

get off the ground verb: to succeed or begin to succeed.

Verb

get off the ground (third-person singular simple present gets off the ground, present participle getting off the ground, simple past got off the ground, past participle (UK) got off the ground or (US) gotten off the ground)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To succeed or begin to succeed.
    • His big plans to get rich never quite seemed to get off the ground.
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To make (something) succeed.
    • He couldn't get George's career off the ground.

Forms of get off the ground

third-person singular presentgets off the ground
present participlegetting off the ground
pastgot off the ground
past participle UKgot off the ground
past participle USgotten off the ground

Questions about get off the ground

What does get off the ground mean?
Get off the ground means to succeed or begin to succeed.
What part of speech is get off the ground?
Get off the ground is a verb.
What is the past tense of get off the ground?
The past tense of get off the ground is got off the ground.

Words near get off the ground in the dictionary

  1. get off one's backside
  2. get off one's chest
  3. get off one's high horse
  4. get off someone's back
  5. get off someone's case
  6. get off the ground
  7. get off the mark
  8. get off the nut
  9. get off with
  10. get on
  11. get on at

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: get off the 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.

Last updated:

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

Cite this entry: “get off the ground.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/get_off_the_ground. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.