1. a spectator who stood in the pit of an Elizabethan theater
Usage: historical
2. a person of unsophisticated or uncultured tastes
Usage: literary
3. a fish that lives on or near the bottom of a body of water
Usage: zoology

Examples

• The groundlings cheered loudly from the pit during Shakespeare’s plays.
• Theater owners charged groundlings only a penny for admission.
• The playwright wrote comic scenes to entertain the groundlings.
• He dismissed the critics as mere groundlings who couldn’t appreciate fine art.
• The documentary explained how groundlings were considered the common people of theater.
• Fishermen caught several groundlings near the lake bottom.
• The aquarium displayed various groundlings in their bottom-dwelling exhibit.