Discovered near the ground (5)
I believe the answer is:
earth
'ground' is the definition.
(I know that earth is a more specific form of ground)
'discovered near the' is the wordplay.
'discovered' says the answer is hidden in the clue (remove the letters covering the answer in the clue).
'EARTH' is hidden in the letters of 'near the'.
(Other definitions for earth that I've seen before include "Dirty hole" , "World - soil" , "Soil; fox's lair" , "our home" , "cost of which is very high" .)