groundless

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English groundles,^[2][3][4] inherited from Old English grundlēas (“bottomless, unfathomable”),^[5][6][2][7] from grund (“ground”) and -lēas (“-less”),^[5][3] from Proto-Germanic *grundulausaz.^[1][8] It has parallel formations in Dutch grondeloos, German grundlos, Swedish grundlös and Old Norse grunnlauss (“boundless”).^[5][6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Bottomless, unfathomable: in Ælfred's Old English translation of Boethius, where greed is seó grundleáse swelgend, a bottomless gulf.^[5][9] The Random House text dates the word to before 900.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Old English the word described an actual pit, the pit of hell, and things without limit, such as insatiable greed.^[9] Middle English kept this: in Shoreham's poems Godes domes beþ a groundlyas pet, and Gower has a groundles pet.^[2][11] The literal sense died out in the early 17th century,^[5][12] just as the modern one appeared, in which the missing ground is a foundation or reason rather than a bottom.^[5][3] Johnson (1755) knew only this sense, "void of reason; without ground", and quoted Prior's groundless fear.^[13]

Timeline

• Old English – bottomless, unfathomable (obsolete by 1606).^[5][9]
• 1620 – without foundation or reason, unfounded.^[5] Etymonline gives the 1620s,^[6] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged 1602.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having no good foundation or reason; unfounded: groundless rumours about the merger.^{[14][3][7][5]}
2. (obsolete, Old English–1606) Bottomless, unfathomable.^[5][12][2]

Word family

• groundlessly
• groundlessness

Related words

• ground

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c Bosworth, Joseph; Toller, T. Northcote (1898), An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press; Toller, T. Northcote (1921), Supplement
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
12. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
14. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt