Word.ws English Dictionary

laying the groundwork

laying the groundwork is the present participle and gerund 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 laying the groundwork

What is laying the groundwork the present participle and gerund of?
Laying the groundwork is the present participle and gerund of lay the groundwork.

Words near laying the groundwork in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: laying 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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