noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   An achievement that is less than expected; underperformance. countable, uncountable

   "This underachievement is linked to a laddish culture […]"

2. 2
   poorer than expected performance (poorer than might have been predicted from intelligence tests) wordnet

Antonyms

All antonyms

overachievement

Example

More examples

"This underachievement is linked to a laddish culture […]"

Etymology

From under- + achievement.

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