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home ground

home ground

2 3.6
A place where a person, group, or animal feels most comfortable, often a team's regular field
  • noun
translation icon : campo local
  • Alone here, safe on home ground, she remembered why she had left this place and mourned what she had lost—Jamie.

Examples

  • They stuck to their home ground.

    Blog text (24)
  • The stadium serves as our home ground, where fans gather to cheer for their favorite team.

  • The sports teams love to play at their home ground, and at the same time, they feel the pressure to perform their best.

    Blog text (7)
  • "Credibility had been established, Michael was on his home ground, and these were bright, decent people he was dealing with.

    Fiction book (1993)
  • "You're on my home ground now, and I fight to win."

    Fiction book (1991)
  • They were on home ground and could afford to wait to see what Caesar's next move would be, whereas Caesar with no supply line would be pressured to make the first move.

  • And while the Cubs were already advertising their home ground as "Beautiful Wrigley Field," hardly anybody thought of Fenway Park as wonderful—mainly because every team, except for Baltimore and Milwaukee, was playing in a stadium built before World War II.

    Blog text (28)
  • At home ground, the team has won 80% of their matches due to strong local support.

  • Playing on their home ground, the players felt more confident and energized throughout the match.

Synonyms

stadium
vshome ground
659 1.4

A large open building with seats around a field for sports or concerts

focuses on feeling most comfortable in a familiar venue rather than size or seating
ballpark
vshome ground
  • US
67 2.9

A stadium where people watch baseball games

is about feeling most comfortable in a familiar venue rather than a sport-specific place
home court
vshome ground
11 3.0

The place where a sports team plays its own games for local fans

is about feeling most comfortable in a familiar regular venue rather than sport-specific use
field house
vshome ground
  • US
2 3.6

A large indoor building for sports and training with space for spectators

emphasizes comfortable familiarity in a regular place rather than an indoor training facility

How Familiar

home ground
2 3.6
foreignness
1 6.8

Surface Forms

home ground singular
home grounds plural

Morphology

home + ground

The sense of 'home ground' is directly built from 'home' (a place where one belongs or represents) + 'ground' (a place or field), yielding the place where a team or person is based or feels at home. This is a straightforward compositional noun–noun compound found cross-linguistically (e.g., 'home field/court', 'campo local') so a B1 learner who knows both constituents will very likely infer the meaning.

Etymology

Home ground comes from sports: a team's home is its own place and ground means the playing field or 'stadium'. When players are on their home ground they know the field and have fans cheering, so the phrase now means 'a place where someone feels most comfortable'.