The SEP article on metaphysical grounding [says of the history of the topic](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grounding/#HistConn):

>There are interesting and difficult questions about grounding, its history, and what its relationship to the history of philosophy is. On one view, the notion of grounding is old, perhaps as old as philosophy itself, with many of its most important thinkers engaging with questions related to grounding. On another view, the notion of grounding is decidedly new—it’s a recent development in contemporary analytic metaphysics. ... Ultimately, however, it seems that the “Is grounding old or new?” question should give way to nuanced and text-based discussions of structural similarities and causal continuities between specific thinkers. As this entry will make clear, contemporary figures don’t fully agree on the concept of grounding. Hence, it seems that there is little to be gained by asking whether thus-and-so historical figures used the same notion as the contemporary figures, as the contemporary figures aren’t using the same notion themselves!

Both that SEP entry and the one on fundamentality have [sections](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/grounding/#WellFoun) about [well-foundedness](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/fundamentality/#WellFoun). And there is not so much difference between, "*A* is the foundation of *B*," "*A* grounds *B*," and, "*A* is fundamental to *B*." The appearance of the old-or-new question turns, it seems, on an uptake in the use of the *word* "grounding" in this context, then. **Was this because of analytic philosophy's "romantic relationship with" science?** Like, from talk of electricity being grounded to talk of [ground states in quantum physics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ground_state), or even [grounding-talk in set theory](https://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4776), do we have the newfangled inspiration for analytic philosophy to start obsessing over the word "grounding"?

Or, to be less mean about it: is there an indispensability argument from grounding-talk in science to grounding-talk in metaphysics, and this argument (subconscious or not) is what explains/justifies analytic philosophy's peculiar concern for this terminology?