Grounding
Also called Earthing, Ground connection
Grounding is electrically connecting an object to a much larger, approximately neutral system such as Earth, which can absorb or supply charge freely. AP Physics C also treats ground as an idealized point of zero electric potential.
Two courses, two useful halves of the same idea.
AP Physics 2, EK 10.2.A.3: grounding involves electrically connecting a charged system to a much larger and approximately neutral system, for example Earth. The C: E&M version, EK 8.2.A.3, says the same about a charged object. The point of the phrase "much larger and approximately neutral" is that whatever charge arrives or leaves makes no measurable difference to the ground, so the ground never pushes back.
AP Physics C: E&M, EK 10.2.A.2 sharpens it into an idealisation: ground is a reference point that has zero electric potential and can absorb or provide an infinite amount of charge without changing its own potential. That is what makes it usable as the zero in a potential difference, since a potential only ever has a value relative to a chosen zero.
Grounding does not simply neutralize. EK 10.2.A.3 in C: E&M says charge can be induced on a conductor by grounding it in the presence of an external electric field, and the result depends on the order of operations: break the ground before removing the inducing charge and the conductor keeps a net charge of the opposite sign. Break it after and nothing sticks. Charging by induction walks the sequence.
A grounded conductor is held at the ground's potential, not forced to zero net charge. Those are different claims, and only the first is what the connection guarantees.