go to ground
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
To hide or go into hiding, often to avoid danger or detection
Literally: an animal hiding in its burrow
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
If this happens at night, go to ground, shelter yourself as best you can and go looking for help the next day unless you're likely to freeze to death in the meantime.
‘ He'll probably go to ground.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “go to ground” mean?
To hide or go into hiding, often to avoid danger or detection Literally: an animal hiding in its burrow
Is “go to ground” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.