lose ground

Idioms  

1. Fail to hold one's position; fall behind, deteriorate. For example, The Democrats were losing ground in this district, or We thought Grandma was getting better, but now she's quickly losing ground. This expression originally referred to territory lost by a retreating army. [Second half of 1700s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

lose ground

The risk for Anthropic—and its backers and suppliers—was that an extended pause in its model rollout would see it lose ground to OpenAI, although the ChatGPT-developer faces its own obstacles.

From Barron's ● Jul. 1, 2026

The market, however, might find out soon enough which software players will actually lose ground to AI—contrary to the idea that any potential loss of market share is years away.

From Barron's ● Mar. 4, 2026

Phil Spencer, 58 years old, will depart after helping to build the company up as a videogames powerhouse only to see it lose ground in recent years.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 25, 2026

While Somalia continues to lose ground to the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab, Somaliland has maintained peace and democratic governance for more than three decades.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 14, 2026

But all students in a bad school, black and white, do lose ground to students in good schools.

From "Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything" by Steven D. Levitt