grounds

/ɡɹaʊndz/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Northumbria/ɡɹʊndz/

grounds is the plural of ground.

grounds is the third-person singular simple present indicative of ground.

Noun (1)

grounds (plural grounds)

Basis or justification for something.
- grounds for divorce
- There was, however, one proposal which, had it reached fruition, might have had far-reaching effects. This was for the amalgamation of the Caledonian, the Edinburgh & Glasgow, and the Scottish Central Railways, for which a Bill was promoted, but rejected by the Parliamentary Committee on the...1960 January, M. D. Greville, “Scottish Railways in 1860”, in Railway Magazine, page 53
The collective land areas that compose a larger area.
- the castle grounds
- House Prees and Bloods […] were everywhere to be seen in earnest colloquy. For the matter was, that there was some sort of night-prowler about the school grounds.1922, Michael Arlen, “1/1/2”, in “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days

ground (countable and uncountable, plural grounds)

The surface of the Earth, as opposed to the sky or water or underground.
- Look, I found a ten dollar bill on the ground!
(uncountable) Terrain.
- As the terrain-following radar scans the ground ahead of the aircraft the actual clearance height is measured by the radio altimeter.1971, “The development of terrain following radar: an account of the progress made with an airborne guidance system for low flying military aircraft”, in Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology
Soil, earth.
- The worm crawls through the ground.
(countable) The bottom of a body of water.
Basis, foundation, groundwork, legwork.
- Wyth cry unreverent,
  Before the sacrament,
  Wythin the holy church bowndis,
  That of our fayth the grownd is.c. 1503–1512, John Skelton, Ware the Hauke; republished in John Scattergood, editor, John Skelton: The Complete English Poems, 1983, →OCLC, page 62, lines 11–14
(in plural) Reason, (epistemic) justification, cause.
- You will need to show good grounds for your action.

grounds pl (plural only)

(plural, plural-only) The sediment at the bottom of a liquid, or from which a liquid has been filtered.
- coffee grounds

plural	grounds

See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.

From ground (“basis, surroundings”).

From ground, past participle of to grind.

What does grounds mean?: Grounds means basis or justification for something.
What is grounds the plural of?: Grounds is the plural of ground.
What part of speech is grounds?: Grounds is a noun.
How do you pronounce grounds?: Grounds is pronounced /ɡɹaʊndz/.
What is the plural of grounds?: The plural of grounds is grounds.

Adapted from Wiktionary: grounds (page history and authors); 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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-grounds.ogg.

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