[Idiom] on the grounds that

Hi,
Nowadays, I am doing a self-study and during doing an exercise I came across a phrase; "on the grounds that". I just cannot understand what this means. This is the sentence where I got this phrase "He refused to lend anyone money on the grounds that people rarely pay a loan.". Could you please clarify this sentence to me?

Thanks.



(Note: please correct me if I wrote this "I am doing a self-study" wrong. Because I feel I am wrong myself.)

See http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/ground_1 Definition#3

UM Chakma said:

a self-study

Click to expand...

My Oxford dictionary says 'self-study' is uncountable, so I think the article should be removed.

Not a teacher.

In that sentence, you can replace "on the grounds that" with "because".

Matthew Wai said:

My Oxford dictionary says 'self-study' is uncountable, so I think the article should be removed.

Click to expand...

And this dictionary says it's not.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/self-study

Nevertheless, I think "self-study", as the OP has used it, tends to mean a study of oneself - at least in my experience, as in #2 in the above. I'd write, "I'm doing self-study..." or "I'm doing self-studies..." Note that this dictionary also doesn't use 'a'. It's simply "self-study".

Besides my Oxford dictionary, Macmillan and Cambridge also say it is uncountable.
http://www.macmillandictionary.com/dictionary/british/self-study
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/british/self-study?q=self-study

It seems that the meaning is different from the OP's intended meaning when it is used as a countable noun.

Not a teacher.

Thanks Mike. Then, does "one the grounds that" mean only "because"? Or it has other meanings besides "because"? But considering your answer, it seems there are more meanings.

"On the grounds" can mean "on the property". The lost dog was found on the grounds of his family's estate.

It also can have various legal meanings:

on the grounds adjective argued, arising from, based on, brought as a result of, brought onaccount of, built on, contingent upon, dependent on, established by, founded on, grounded on,justified by, rationalized by, relying on, rested on, rooted in, settled upon
Associated concepts: charges brought on the grounds that, grounds for divorce, legal grounds,on the grounds for appeal, on the grounds of prejudice, predicted on the grounds for dismissalBurton's Legal Thesaurus, 4E. Copyright © 2007 by William C. Burton. Used with permission of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.