groundling

noun

1. Any of various plants or animals living on or near the ground, as a benthic fish or bottom feeder, especially

   “In the pond behind the garden there were plenty of carp and groundlings.”

   “[…] the ewe called Tiny Crossed over and touched her, the others turned anxious looks From sniffing the autumn-pinched leaves of the groundling blackberries.”

   “Delgard got out the handkerchief again and blew his nose loud enough to alert any bird or groundling within several hundred yards.”

2. Any of various plants or animals living on or near the ground, as a benthic fish or bottom feeder, especially:

   “The BEARDED-LOACH or GROUNDLING. Gobites Barbatula. It is a small fish about five inches long, bearded with six small Threads, three on each side”

   “When you angle for a trout, you are to do it as deep, that is, as near to the bottom as you can, provided your bait do not drag, although a trout will sometimes take it in that posture: if for a grayling, you are then to fish further from the buttom, it being a fish that usually swims nearer to the middle of the water, and lies always loose; or, however, is more apt to raise than trout, and more inclined to raise than to descend, even to a groundling.”

   “Fertilized groundling (Misgurnus fossilis) and sturgeon (Acipenser Stellatus) eggs were irradiated (10,000 r) at stages from fertilization to middle gastrulation.”

   “Lopashov (1944) extirpated and grafted neural tubes from several species of teleosts—the groundling, Misgurnus fossilis, the loach, Nemacheilus barhatulus, and the perch, Perca fluviatilis — to determine whether pigment cells were of neural crest origin.”

3. Any of various plants or animals living on or near the ground, as a benthic fish or bottom feeder, especially:
4. Any of various plants or animals living on or near the ground, as a benthic fish or bottom feeder, especially:
5. Any of various plants or animals living on or near the ground, as a benthic fish or bottom feeder, especially:
6. An audience member in the cheap section (usually standing; originally in Elizabethan theater).

   “O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise.”

   “when your Groundling, and gallery-Commoner buyes his sport by the penny, and, like a Hagler, is glad to utter it againe by retailing.”

   “The flag is up on the playhouse by the bankside. The bear Sackerson growls in the pit near it, Paris garden. Canvasclimbers who sailed with Drake chew their sausages among the groundlings.”

   “Passion, and passion in its profoundest, is not a thing demanding a palatial stage whereon to play its part. Down among the groundlings, among the beggars and rakers of the garbage, profound passion is enacted.”

   “In fact, most of the mob did not know there was such a thing as a director, and it was the actors and the student orchestra whom the groundlings applauded.”

7. (broadly)A person of uncultivated or uncultured taste.

   “This is what the magnanimous National Liberal Federation have said in effect to the House of Lords, and what, it should seem, they innocently regard as likely to impress the Gladstonian groundling.”

   “If you happen to be a genius it will not necessarily be fatal to your inspiration if you succeed in winning the love of a groundling. Female groundlings often make excellent housekeepers; male groundlings good providers. But if your groundling is not of the pure type and should greatly admire your intellectual output, you will probably adapt your future production to the groundling understanding, and at that moment you begin to die at the top.”

   “Millions of these have no conception of the meaning and obligation of popular government, and so they are the ready prey of demagogues and groundlings.”

   “It's like saying that Dickens put in all this crude, comic stuff to please the groundlings. I don't think he did.”

   “They serve to allow the thousands of groundlings who attend alongside the celebrities to talk, to swap ideas and generally to stick their fingers in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.”

8. One who is confined to the ground, especially

   “It is not the good workman that is wont to quarrel with his tools ; adminicular aids and clinging propensities are fit only for the groundling, the child who is unable to walk upright and must be fain to crawl and to creep on as he best may.”

   “On Tuesday, April 17th, 1906, a business man of San Francisco ascended for the first time in five years to one of the upper stores of the highest sky-scraper in the Newpaper Angle. He was a groundling who had kept his ears as well as his feet to the earth.”

9. (slang)One who is confined to the ground, especially:

   “The poor plodding groundling, helpless and impotent, is swooped upon at will, day and night, completely wiped out at the whim of the low- flying plane, which soars off leaving complete and utter destruction behind it!”

   “He then enlisted in the air force and served as a groundling in North Africa, Sicily, and England.”

   “Present at the Battle of Jutland, he had been recalled for the duration of this war and, being in the area, he had come to see how his little lad was faring in the sky. I was given permission to fall out and join him, gladly setting aside my groundling's bayonet.”

10. One who is confined to the ground, especially:

    “Simon noticed a groundling look intently at Walsingham's purse and nudge his mate.”

    “One, a short groundling with dark leathery skin and long white hair, said, "It's not your house, Ventl. You, stranger, did you come here to trade?"”

    “It was obvious that the brown-haired groundling had been involved in some heavy hand-to-hand combat recently.”

11. Adam, before eating the apple of knowledge of good and evil (emphasizing his creation from the ground).

    “It is not good for the groundling to be alone I will make for it a help as its counterpart (2.18).”

    “The two of them were naked, the groundling and his woman, they were not ashamed.”

    “It isn't until three chapters later that this groundling receives a name—Adam; at that point, the groundling is no longer referred to as “it” in the text, but becomes “him.””