grass roots

1. 1.

   the essential foundation or source

   “the problem was attacked at the grass roots”

   Broaderfoundation
2. 2.

   the common people at a local level (as distinguished from the centers of political activity)

   Broaderfolk

   plural

Questions about grass roots

What does grass roots mean?

grass roots means "the essential foundation or source". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

Is grass roots a common word?

grass roots is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.