Underpull
adj, noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 A driver for pumping that has the eccentrics under the gear wheel.
"Am therefore suggesting, that when you have a prospective customer, not to be so exacting, not to require a concrete foundation, neither the underpull and a vent spout leading to the roof ."
- 2 Synonym of undertow.
""He's got hold of him!" rang out, as the struggling swimmer seemed to snatch at the shoulder of the drowning man. Then an appalled murmur arose. " It's an underpull!""
- 3 A downward pull or force. broadly
"[…] steps stretching the height of the tower carry upward the longings of men who wished to escape the underpull of time and gravity."
- 4 A negative influence.
"Some of the children are from the best stock of India, but some have everything against them (and the underpull of heredity can tell hardly on a child)."
- 5 A secret or indirect influence.
"And yet we can not escape from the feeling that very much of what we are has been determined for us by some mysterious underpull, the nature of which we do not always understand and the purposes of which we are dull to interpret."
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- 6 A handhold that allows one to pull oneself up from below.
"Higher the climb followed the line of least resistance up a succession of slabs, flakes, and cracks, where the ordinary hold was an underpull for the hands and friction for the feet."
- 7 The act of pulling (any sense) insufficiently.
"Algebraically, there may be little difference between underpull where the correct response fails to be attractive to the minority group members for cultural reasons, as discussed above, and overpull that acts for the majority group, attracting them to the correct response for cultural reasons perhaps combined with knowledge."
- 8 The act of pulling (any sense) insufficiently.; Failure to pull a muscle as far as it can contract.
"Half an inch (1.25 cm) of shortening due to underpull is far less serious than half an inch of lengthening with slow union due to overpull."
- 1 To exert one's influence secretly. transitive
"His Lordship, while he was a Student, and during his Incapacity to practise aboveboard, was contented to underpull, as they call it, and managed diverse Suits for his Country Friends and Relations[…]"
- 2 To pull (any sense) insufficiently.
"The common failing is to underpull in these early hours because of fear of overpull ."
- 1 Designed to be pulled and mounted on the underside.
"One-piece white vitreous china flush pipe cover and white vitreous china bolt caps. White Vitreous china swelled front low down tank with underpull lever."
Synonyms
All synonymsExample
More examples"Am therefore suggesting, that when you have a prospective customer, not to be so exacting, not to require a concrete foundation, neither the underpull and a vent spout leading to the roof ."
Etymology
From under- + pull.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.