ground rules

Idioms  

1. Basic procedures of conduct, as in The press secretary sets the ground rules for all of the President's press conferences. The term comes from baseball, where it refers to specific rules for a particular ballpark, which are based on special conditions such as a very high outfield fence or a field obstruction of some kind. It began to be transferred to more general use in the mid-1900s.

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Example Sentences

Anthropic is resisting the Pentagon’s requests to use its tech in ways that violate two company ground rules: That it won’t be used for mass surveillance of Americans or to power fully autonomous weapons.

From Slate • Feb. 28, 2026

The ground rules were clear: Nothing they said would leave the room.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 21, 2026

Before you begin, you need to set ground rules, like no crosstalk or fingerpointing or bad language or namecalling etc.

From MarketWatch • Nov. 21, 2025

He referred to the lack of pre-bout meeting between the fighters, referee and coaches to lay down the "ground rules" for the bout.

From BBC • Jun. 12, 2025

At the outset, I set the ground rules for our discussions.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela