a spectator who stood in the pit of an Elizabethan theatre
O, it offends me to the soul to hear … a fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings — Shakespeare
somebody regarded as being of low status
an animal or plant that stays or grows close to the ground, or a fish that lives on or near the bottom of the water
a person who works on the ground as opposed to in the air or on water