ground floor
- the floor of a building at or nearest to ground level.
- Informal. an advantageous position or opportunity in a business matter, especially in a new enterprise: She took the job in the new company because she wanted to get in on the ground floor.
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Origin of ground floor
First recorded in 1595–1605
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for ground floor
Contemporary Examples
Entering Morbid Anatomy from an unremarkable, industrial street in Brooklyn, its ground-floor coffee shop/bookstore is buzzing.
Brooklyn’s Museum of Death: Inside Morbid Anatomy’s House of Intriguing HorrorsNina Strochlic
July 10, 2014
He had been renting his current place—a ground-floor apartment in a house on a hill—for the past four years.
Historical Examples
One of the ground-floor windows at the gable end of the house was open.
Casanova's HomecomingArthur Schnitzler
She opened the door of the ground-floor bedroom and looked in.
The Green Satin GownLaura E. Richards
In a good-sized room of the ground-floor Atlee found the prince awaiting him.
Lord KilgobbinCharles Lever
As he reached the marble hall on the ground-floor a lady was getting into the lift.
A Great ManArnold Bennett
And this fireplace was on the ground-floor, and not in Oxford Street.
A Great ManArnold Bennett
ground floor
- the floor of a building level or almost level with the ground
- get in on the ground floor or start from the ground floor informal
- to enter a business, organization, etc, at the lowest level
- to be in a project, undertaking, etc, from its inception
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for ground floor
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper