Word.ws English Dictionary

ground rule

ground rule noun: a rule regarding play on a specific field, course, or court.

Noun

ground rule (plural ground rules)

  1. A rule regarding play on a specific field, course, or court.
  2. (idiomatic, plural-normally) The basic rules or standards; basic principles.
    • Make sure everybody knows the ground rules for the trip before they leave.
    • The apparent success of the City and South London triggered an avalanche of bills for Tube railways, and in 1892 a Joint Select Committee of Parliament set out some ground rules.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 109

Forms of ground rule

pluralground rules

Questions about ground rule

What does ground rule mean?
Ground rule means a rule regarding play on a specific field, course, or court.
What part of speech is ground rule?
Ground rule is a noun.
What is the plural of ground rule?
The plural of ground rule is ground rules.

Words near ground rule in the dictionary

  1. ground rents
  2. ground roller
  3. ground rollers
  4. ground row
  5. ground rows
  6. ground rule
  7. ground rules
  8. ground score
  9. ground scored
  10. ground scores
  11. ground scoring

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: ground rule (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-ground rule.ogg.

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