groundling

Meaning

Noun

• Any of various plants or animals living on or near the ground, as a benthic fish or bottom feeder, especially:
• An audience member in the cheap section (usually standing; originally in Elizabethan theater).
• A person of uncultivated or uncultured taste.
• One who is confined to the ground, especially:
• Adam, before eating the apple of knowledge of good and evil (emphasizing his creation from the ground).

Origin

• From ground + -ling. Compare Old English grundling ("a groundling fish, grundel").