Meanings
plural groundsiders
- literatureSomeone who lives on the ground (as opposed to space).
Near the main airlock she foimd Tregare arguing loudly with persons she had never seen—groundsiders here, she thought.
1976, F[rancis] M[arion] Busby, Rissa Kerguelen, Berkley Publishing Corporation, →ISBN, page 673 more examples
Coming back groundside, you always felt the dissociation. They shouldn't have brought him all the way back here; they should have left him out at a Jupiter station, or somewhere his own kind were. These groundsiders were the real aliens. He couldn't make any connections with contemporary Earth—this wasn't the America he remembered.
1988, Janet Morris, Chris Morris, Outpassage, New York, N.Y.: Pageant Books, →ISBN, page 7Trinli paused a second, holding his place with one hand while his whole body quivered with the need for crampons and ropes, and pitons driven solid into the walls around him. Lord. It had been a long time since his groundsider orientation had come back this strongly. He moved forward. Forward. Not up.
1999, Vernor Vinge, A Deepness in the Sky, New York, N.Y.: Tor Books, →ISBN, page 109The server was cute, and I wondered how she got here, because her physique was groundsider, even more than mine. She had a wedge do with blond highlights and was cheerful without being icky.
2016, Michael Z. Williamson, Angeleyes, Riverdale, N.Y.: Baen Books, →ISBN, page 118
Synonyms & antonyms
Origin
Cite this entry
groundsider. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/groundsider
“groundsider.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/groundsider. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “groundsider,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/groundsider.
Source: groundsider on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.