Today's Word "Groundling"
Published in Vocabulary
groundling \GROUND-ling\ (noun) - 1 : A person of unsophisticated taste; one that lives or works on or near the ground; 2 : a spectator who stood in the pit of an Elizabethan theater.
"But then, Roger was not a groundling. He was no mere spectator, but a leading man — a (Capulet or a Montague, take your pick — who was using the Square as a sort of Green Room." -- Neal Stephenson, 'The System of the World'
In Elizabethan times, play-going audiences consisted of the upper gallery (where the wealthier patrons fanned themselves and looked with disdain at those in the pit below) and pit spectators, who had to sit or stand in close proximity on the bare floor, exposed to the sweltering sun or the dampening rain. The pit was also called the "ground"; those in it were "groundlings." Today, we use "groundlings" to refer not only to the less than couth among us, but also (often with some facetiousness) to ordinary Janes or Joes.
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