break new ground

English edit

break new ground (third-person singular simple present breaks new ground, present participle breaking new ground, simple past broke new ground, past participle broken new ground)

(literally) To begin excavating and levelling earth for a new building, or, originally, for cultivation.
(by extension) To initiate a new venture, especially something never before attempted; to advance or innovate.
- 1962 October, “Motive Power Miscellany: London Midland Region: Central Lines”, in Modern Railways, page 280:
  One of the Birmingham R.C.W. diesel multiple-units on the Calder Valley service broke new ground on August 12 when it was enployed for a works excursion from Halifax to Windermere, [...].
- 2023 March 15, Kevin Roose, “GPT-4 Is Exciting and Scary”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:
  Some of these things were possible to do with earlier A.I. models. But OpenAI has broken new ground, too. According to the company, GPT-4 is more capable and accurate than the original ChatGPT, and it performs astonishingly well on a variety of tests […]

To begin excavating and levelling earth for a new building

To initiate a new venture