Word.ws English Dictionary

laid the groundwork

laid the groundwork is the simple past and past participle of lay the groundwork.

Meaning of lay the groundwork

Verb

lay the groundwork (third-person singular simple present lays the groundwork, present participle laying the groundwork, simple past and past participle laid the groundwork)

  1. (figuratively, idiomatic) To create a foundation; to provide the basics or fundamentals.
    • The introductory mathematics courses will lay the groundwork for all your subsequent engineering studies.

Questions about laid the groundwork

What is laid the groundwork the simple past and past participle of?
Laid the groundwork is the simple past and past participle of lay the groundwork.

Words near laid the groundwork in the dictionary

  1. laid some skin on
  2. laid something at the door of
  3. laid something at the feet of
  4. laid store by
  5. laid the dust
  6. laid the groundwork
  7. laid the hammer down
  8. laid the smack down
  9. laid the table
  10. laid to
  11. laid to heart

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: laid the groundwork (page history and authors); lay the groundwork (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: “laid the groundwork.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/laid_the_groundwork. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.