(prep.) Below or lower, in place or position, with the idea of being covered; lower than; beneath; -- opposed to over; as, he stood under a tree; the carriage is under cover; a cellar extends under the whole house.
(prep.) Denoting relation to some thing or person that is superior, weighs upon, oppresses, bows down, governs, directs, influences powerfully, or the like, in a relation of subjection, subordination, obligation, liability, or the like; as, to travel under a heavy load; to live under extreme oppression; to have fortitude under the evils of life; to have patience under pain, or under misfortunes; to behave like a Christian under reproaches and injuries; under the pains and penalties of the law; the condition under which one enters upon an office; under the necessity of obeying the laws; under vows of chastity.
(prep.) Denoting relation to something that exceeds in rank or degree, in number, size, weight, age, or the like; in a relation of the less to the greater, of inferiority, or of falling short.
(prep.) Denoting relation to something that comprehends or includes, that represents or designates, that furnishes a cover, pretext, pretense, or the like; as, he betrayed him under the guise of friendship; Morpheus is represented under the figure of a boy asleep.
(prep.) Less specifically, denoting the relation of being subject, of undergoing regard, treatment, or the like; as, a bill under discussion.
(adv.) In a lower, subject, or subordinate condition; in subjection; -- used chiefly in a few idiomatic phrases; as, to bring under, to reduce to subjection; to subdue; to keep under, to keep in subjection; to control; to go under, to be unsuccessful; to fail.
(a.) Lower in position, intensity, rank, or degree; subject; subordinate; -- generally in composition with a noun, and written with or without the hyphen; as, an undercurrent; undertone; underdose; under-garment; underofficer; undersheriff.
Example Sentences:
Undertow
Definition:
(n.) The current that sets seaward near the bottom when waves are breaking upon the shore.
Example Sentences:
(1) Today as the marijuana economies in Colorado and Washington begin to take flight, Alexander noted the inescapable undertow of race that continues to haunt this moment of apparent progress at play: "Forty years of impoverished black kids getting prison time for selling weed, and their families and futures destroyed … Now, white men are planning to get rich doing precisely the same thing."
(2) The atmosphere is calm, happy and orderly, but there’s an undertow of profound need – not obvious during a brief visit – that affects a significant number of the children and their ability to learn.
(3) He said: “Apparently there has been this undertow that has now bubbled to the surface.” Addressing a town hall meeting in Ferguson earlier this week, Cornell Brooks, the president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), said that police in the city must address a “subculture” of prejudice.
(4) Back in the early 1980s, when U2 began to hone their widescreen sound, the quasi-religious undertow of their big music defied the tenor of the downbeat post-punk times.
(5) The undertow of barely suppressed concern was evident at a pre-kickoff press conference in the bowels of the Stade de France that began with the official mascot, Super Victor , cavorting with the DJ David Guetta, who will appear at the opening ceremony, but ended with a slew of questions on security and strikes.
(6) Where his previous porn film, as it were, had an undertow of sniggering prurience (to the extent that he appeared as an extra in a gay porno entitled Take A Peak), Twilight Of The Porn Stars is sombre and sympathetic.
(7) That tribute had an undertow of concern over a footballer who has naturally lost some of his effervescence but there was nothing flat about Giggs on Saturday.
(8) What is palpable throughout is the homoerotic undertow that is a constant in all his work.
(9) He added: "Apparently there is this undertow that has now bubbled to the surface."
(10) I would love to be able to write for pure pleasure, but the undertow is always loneliness.” He makes a gesture of helplessness.
(11) Day-trippers should be aware that there are no lifeguards on duty here and it isn't safe to swim in the big surf as there are undertows.
(12) I ask Walsh if the play has any social undertow other than the sense that deepest rural Ireland can be a casually cruel and, indeed, gothic place.
(13) Underneath the pills and lotions and new-age quackery that our pains and aches lead us towards, there is an undertow, an underpinning and an imagined certainty that – as with all those other diseases that were once so common and are now so rare – ours too will one day be a distant memory.
(14) I could no longer sleep; my consciousness filled up with the lumber of dreams, of broken-edged sections of the past heaving in the undertow.