Groundwork

noun

noun ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The foundation; the basic or fundamental parts that support or allow for the rest. countable, uncountable

    "The discovery of the laws of electricity laid the groundwork for a century of innovation."

  2. 2
    preliminary preparation as a basis or foundation wordnet
  3. 3
    lowest support of a structure wordnet
  4. 4
    the fundamental assumptions from which something is begun or developed or calculated or explained wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
basisfoundationarrangementbasebasebasement

Example

More examples

"Though Shepard spent only 5 minutes in actual space aboard Freedom 7, he laid the groundwork for the United States to become the great innovator in space exploration we know today."

Etymology

From ground + work.

Related phrases

lay the groundwork

More for "groundwork"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.