Underpromise

verb

verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    To promise less than one expects to do. intransitive

    "“He’s wise not to overpromise, but to underpromise and overdeliver,” said Dave Checketts, a former president of the Knicks and then Madison Square Garden who left in 2001 after a power struggle with James L. Dolan, the chairman of the Garden."

Synonyms

All synonyms
undercommit

Example

More examples

"“He’s wise not to overpromise, but to underpromise and overdeliver,” said Dave Checketts, a former president of the Knicks and then Madison Square Garden who left in 2001 after a power struggle with James L. Dolan, the chairman of the Garden."

Etymology

From under- + promise.

Related phrases

underpromise and overdeliver

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