Underly
adj, adv, verb, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 Nonstandard spelling of underlie. alt-of, nonstandard
"I asked him what principles he felt should underly the care provided during such a voyage."
- 1 Poor; inferior. dialectal
- 1 At a lower level. obsolete, rare
"The Seed-Branch […] is presently divided into two main Branches, and those two into other less; whereof some underly, others aloft, run along the Coat."
- 2 In an inferior or inadequate manner; insufficiently (chiefly in opposition to overly). colloquial
"In this case, we are not in a position—at least from the perspective of the rules themselves and the values that lie behind them—to say that they are overly or underly inclusive."
Example
More examples"The Seed-Branch […] is presently divided into two main Branches, and those two into other less; whereof some underly, others aloft, run along the Coat."
Etymology
From under + -ly.
Back-formation from underlying.
More for "underly"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.