groundwork

English

ground +‎ work

groundwork (countable and uncountable, plural groundworks)

The foundation; the basic or fundamental parts that support or allow for the rest.
The discovery of the laws of electricity laid the groundwork for a century of innovation.
- 1961 December, “Planning the London Midland main-line electrification”, in Trains Illustrated, page 720:
  This outline programme was compiled by a working party consisting of members from the Regional Planning Office, the civil, mechanical and electrical, and signal engineering departments and the traffic services, on the basis of much groundwork done within each of these departments.

foundation

Arabic: please add this translation if you can
Bashkir: нигеҙ (nigeð)
Bulgarian: основа (bg) f (osnova), база (bg) f (baza), основен принцип m (osnoven princip)
Chinese:
Mandarin: 基礎／基础 (zh) (jīchǔ), 基礎性工作／基础性工作 (jīchǔxìng gōngzuò)
Dutch: grondslag (nl)
Finnish: perustus (fi), perusta (fi)
French: fondation (fr) f, fondement (fr) m
Galician: fundamento (gl) m, cimento (gl) m, alicerce (gl) m
German: Grundlage (de) f
Hindi: नींव (nī̃v), आधार (hi) (ādhār)
Indonesian: dasar (id), fondasi (id)
Italian: fondamenti (it) m
Japanese: 基礎 (ja) (きそ, kiso)
Korean: 터 (ko) (teo)
Latin: principium (la) n
Macedonian: please add this translation if you can
Manx: obbyr undinagh f
Maori: kaupapa, mahinga tumu
Norwegian:
Bokmål: grunnarbeid n
Nynorsk: grunnarbeid n
Portuguese: fundamento (pt) m
Russian: осно́ва (ru) f (osnóva), фунда́мент (ru) m (fundáment)
Spanish: cimiento (es) m, fundamento (es) m
Swedish: grundstomme