Word Meanings - GROUNDLING - Book Publishers vocabulary database

A fish that keeps at the bottom of the water, as the loach. 2. A spectator in the pit of a theater, which formerly was on the ground, and without floor or benches. No comic buffoon to make the groundlings laugh. Coleridge.

Related words: (words related to GROUNDLING)

• LAUGHINGLY
  With laughter or merriment.
• WATER-BEARER
  The constellation Aquarius.
• WATERWORT
  Any plant of the natural order Elatineæ, consisting of two genera , mostly small annual herbs growing in the edges of ponds. Some have a peppery or acrid taste.
• WATER SHREW
  Any one of several species of shrews having fringed feet and capable of swimming actively. The two common European species are the best known. The most common American water shrew, or marsh shrew , is rarely seen, owing to its nocturnal habits.
• WATER-TIGHT
  So tight as to retain, or not to admit, water; not leaky.
• WATER RAT
  The water vole. See under Vole. The muskrat. The beaver rat. See under Beaver. 2. A thief on the water; a pirate.
• GROUNDWORK
  That which forms the foundation or support of anything; the basis; the essential or fundamental part; first principle. Dryden.
• WATER CRAKE
  The dipper. The spotted crake . See Illust. of Crake. The swamp hen, or crake, of Australia.
• SPECTATORSHIP
  1. The office or quality of a spectator. Addison. 2. The act of beholding. Shak.
• WATER DOG
  A dog accustomed to the water, or trained to retrieve waterfowl. Retrievers, waters spaniels, and Newfoundland dogs are so trained.
• BOTTOMRY
  A contract in the nature of a mortgage, by which the owner of a ship, or the master as his agent, hypothecates and binds the ship as security for the repayment of money advanced or lent for the use of the ship, if she terminates her voyage
• GROUNDEN
  p. p. of Grind. Chaucer.
• WATER SAIL
  A small sail sometimes set under a studding sail or under a driver boom, and reaching nearly to the water.
• WATER CLOCK
  An instrument or machine serving to measure time by the fall, or flow, of a certain quantity of water; a clepsydra.
• WATERIE
  The pied wagtail; -- so called because it frequents ponds.
• WATER BALLAST
  Water confined in specially constructed compartments in a vessel's hold, to serve as ballast.
• WATER RAM
  An hydraulic ram.
• WATER LINE
  Any one of certain lines of a vessel, model, or plan, parallel with the surface of the water at various heights from the keel. Note: In a half-breadth plan, the water lines are outward curves showing the horizontal form of the ship at their several
• WATER LOCUST
  A thorny leguminous tree which grows in the swamps of the Mississippi valley.
• LAUGHTER
  A movement of the muscles of the face, particularly of the lips, with a peculiar expression of the eyes, indicating merriment, satisfaction, or derision, and usually attended by a sonorous and interrupted expulsion of air from the lungs.
• MISGROUND
  To found erroneously. "Misgrounded conceit." Bp. Hall.
• SULPHUR-BOTTOM
  A very large whalebone whale of the genus Sibbaldius, having a yellowish belly; especially, S. sulfureus of the North Pacific, and S. borealis of the North Atlantic; -- called also sulphur whale.
• OUTLAUGH
  1. To surpass or outdo in laughing. Dryden. 2. To laugh out of a purpose, principle, etc.; to discourage or discomfit by laughing; to laugh down. His apprehensions of being outlaughed will force him to continue in a restless obscurity. Franklin.
• UNDERGROUND INSURANCE
  Wildcat insurance.
• SLAUGHTERHOUSE
  A house where beasts are butchered for the market.
• PLAYGROUND
  A piece of ground used for recreation; as, the playground of a school.