Under-

prefix

prefix ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Prefix
  1. 1
    Beneath, under morpheme

    "e.g. underground, underneath, underpass"

  2. 2
    To go from one side to the other; to progress along a path figuratively, morpheme

    "e.g. understand, undergo, underbear, undertake"

  3. 3
    Less than, beneath in quantity morpheme

    "e.g. underadditive, underage, underbound"

  4. 4
    Deficient, below what is correct, insufficient morpheme

    "e.g. underapply, underbill, underawe"

  5. 5
    Subordinate to morpheme

    "e.g. undersecretary, underling, underclass"

Synonyms

All synonyms
hyposubdyseninframal

Example

More examples

"e.g. underground, underneath, underpass"

Etymology

From Middle English under-, from Old English under-, from Proto-West Germanic *undar, from Proto-Germanic *under, from Proto-Indo-European *(H)n̥dʰér (“below”) and *h₁n̥tér (“inside”). For more, see under.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.