ground man

• groundman, ground-man

ground man (plural ground men)

1. A man who works at an airfield as a member of the groundcrew.
   • 2010, Michael Flynn, In the Country of the Blind:

     Red carted their overnight bags to the plane, and the ground man broke off his conversation with the pilot to stuff them into the nose compartment.

   • 2011, Earl Heron, One Desert Jet Turner:

     The ground man and I were stepping through the checklist.

   • 2014, Martin W. Bowman, We Were Eagles:

     A ground man is polishing the newly mended nose, rubbing every bit of dirt from it, so that the bombardier may have a good sight of his target.

2. A man who works from the ground alongside others who climb or work on a lift, ladder, hoist, etc.
   • 1986, The Arboricultural Journal, page 290:

     The above list is by no means exhaustive but outlines the ways in which a ground man may affect the performance of a climber.

   • 2010, Dennis Perry, Mad Dog Steel Time, page 76:

     With Cowboy acting as his ground man he started climbing a corner of the cabin where logs overlapped in a locking pattern.

   • 2011, Michael Sutton, On the Crest of a Wave:

     Then Robert in the hoist signalled to Larry the 'ground man' and the crane driver lowered them down to the topsail which Ronnie and Robert worked on.

3. Alternative form of groundsman
   • 1904, The Era Annual, page 41:

     The ground man had pulled up the large tacks when using the mowing machine, and put them into the ground again (anywhere) afterwards.

   • 1922, The Badminton Magazine of Sports and Pastimes:

     It is surprising how few people outside the regular ground man know how to tend a green.

   • 1936, Clarence Rugg Cleveland, Oil Sprays: A Fruit Growers Handbook and Record, page 63:

     The ground man should be trained not to work too close to the tree.

   • 2015, Francis Marshall, Football: The Rugby Union Game, page 105:

     As stated above, a man can only play football in good form for a few years, and then he has nothing to fall back upon; whilst a cricketer can retain his form for a long number of years, and when getting on in years he can still be a ground bowler, a teacher of the game, a ground man or an umpire, so that through cricket a man can get genuine occupation for a number of years.

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