Word.ws English Dictionary

ground down

ground down is the simple past and past participle of grind down.

Meaning of grind down

Verb

grind down (third-person singular simple present grinds down, present participle grinding down, simple past and past participle ground down)

  1. (transitive) To make something hard smaller and smoother by gradually rubbing off tiny bits; to wear down by grinding action.
    • The old dog's teeth had been ground down by constant use.
  2. (idiomatic, transitive) To weaken someone's morale over a long period.
    • Djokovic broke twice in each of the opening two sets, dismantling 6ft 8in Anderson's service game and grinding him down in the rallies.2018 July 15, Jonathan Jurejko, “Novak Djokovic wins fourth Wimbledon by beating Kevin Anderson”, in BBC Sport

Questions about ground down

What is ground down the simple past and past participle of?
Ground down is the simple past and past participle of grind down.

Words near ground down in the dictionary

  1. ground cuckoo
  2. ground cuckoos
  3. ground cypress
  4. ground dove
  5. ground doves
  6. ground down
  7. ground effect
  8. ground effect machine
  9. ground effect machines
  10. ground effects
  11. ground elder

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ground down (page history and authors); grind down (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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Cite this entry: “ground down.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ground_down. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.