aground
Americanadverb
adverb
Etymology
Origin of aground
Explanation
Aground describes a boat that's accidentally gone ashore, or is stuck on the bottom of a lake or other body of water. If your kayak goes aground, you may need to get out and push it further out in the bay. When you use the word aground, you're almost certainly talking about a boat or ship. If a sailboat runs aground, its hull can be damaged, which might even cause the boat to take on water. Running aground can be a minor inconvenience, or a major accident. Since about 1500, the adjective aground has been a nautical term that generally means "stranded on land."
Vocabulary lists containing aground
Red Kayak
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Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky
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The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The wreckage discovered on a beach on Sunday is believed to be part of the "Warren Sawyer" – which ran aground near Nantucket in 1884, according to the Nantucket Current.
From BBC ● Sep. 28, 2026
It is a measure of how much water is needed for a ship to float safely without running aground.
From Barron's ● Sep. 7, 2026
Ice islands from Petermann may instead travel farther before running aground.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 4, 2026
But other consolidation attempts among Italian banks have run aground on shareholder opposition and execution snarls.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 28, 2026
I kept going, but toward the head of the creek, a marsh taken over by a patch of tall phragmites warned of shallow water, and I turned the boat around, not wanting to run aground.
From "Red Kayak" by Priscilla Cummings
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
