(v. t.) To perform inefficiently, as a play; to act feebly.
Example Sentences:
(1) The changes discovered were evidently the result of functional underactivity of the skeletal muscles under conditions of weightlessness.
(2) Urodynamically 9 patients had underactive detrusor function, 2 had infravesical obstruction and 3 had both underactive detrusor function and infravesical obstruction.
(3) Most commonly noted prodromal symptoms were disturbed sleep and slowness and underactivity.
(4) There was no differentiation between overactive bladder-overactive sphincter and underactive bladder-overactive sphincter.
(5) Postoperative underaction of the myectomized muscle was not observed in any of our patients.
(6) This was due in all cases to underaction of the superior oblique muscle and probably to backward displacement of the trochlea which may be avoided by careful surgical re-attachment.
(7) Criticism was associated with other patient characteristics, including aggressive and attention-seeking behaviour, underactivity, and limited social interaction.
(8) Lessons have been learned from disorders that cause either sympathetic underactivity or overactivity.
(9) Methionine adenosyltransferase has been reported to be underactive in depression and schizophrenia and overactive in mania.
(10) In 3 patients the underactive lateral rectus was completely fibrotic; in 1 patient there was 80% fibrosis, and the rest of the muscle showed different stages of degeneration.
(11) This relative over- or underactivity of the cholinergic system could result from altered synthesis, storage, release, degradation, or reuptake or from a variety of receptor interactions.
(12) The data are interpreted as suggesting that tardive dyskinesia is mediated by underactivity of the pathways from the subthalamic nucleus to the medial pallidal segment and the substantia pars nigra pars reticulata, which in turn result in a loss of gamma-aminobutyric acid-ergic inhibition of the VA and VL thalamic nuclei.
(13) Urodynamic testing had demonstrated underactive detrusor function in all.
(14) This finding suggests underactivity of the cholinergic pathway from the pedunculopontine nucleus of the medial pallidal segment.
(15) Inferior oblique underaction was present in 12 of 16 eyes (75%) in the early postoperative period; however, elevation in adduction improved over time.
(16) The reason why these 2 patients had an underactive detrusor is unclear.
(17) Prorenin underactivity may facilitate renin-mediated ischemic vascular injury.
(18) The hypotheses of relative cholinergic underactivity in Huntington's disease, tardive dyskinesia, mania, and schizophrenia were pharmacologically investigated, using physostigmine and choline chloride.
(19) Only one patient demonstrated postoperative underaction of the recessed inferior oblique.
(20) Superior oblique underaction in acquired superior oblique palsy results from a neural deficit.
Underplay
Definition:
(v. i.) To play in a subordinate, or in an inferior manner; to underact a part.
(v. i.) To play a low card when holding a high one, in the hope of a future advantage.
(n.) The act of underplaying.
Example Sentences:
(1) "References to 'the miracles' that companies are able to perform risks underplaying the role that donors like DfID and country governments have in ensuring that economic development provides benefits to the poorest in society."
(2) Your obituary of Michael Meacher (22 October) underplays his significant contribution to the promotion of genuinely green policies.
(3) Such detail was generally underplayed or not accessible, and its full significance for children in each family could only be assessed by combining direct personal clinical involvement with record linkage methods, depending in turn on good co-operation from all agencies concerned wholly or partly with child protection.
(4) Barlow says the importance of studying literature should not be underplayed.
(5) @Camila_nobrega Media platforms should make complex development issues accessible to the public: An important role of the media is to simplify development information but also to handle academic research without underplaying its complexity.
(6) But it was important that MPs did not duck or underplay the importance of welfare reform.
(7) But the findings, though grim, may underplay the threat to survival of North America’s birds.
(8) At Ukip’s spring conference last week Farage was emphatic: “I don’t think anybody for one moment can underplay just how important, just how fundamental that byelection is for the futures of both the Labour party and indeed of Ukip too – it matters and it matters hugely,” he said.
(9) In the end, though, it is difficult to underplay the part that money played in the transfer – including for Lanzini’s advisers and associates.
(10) While the intended thrust of this paper has been to elicidate the tremendous potential of the behavioral-ecological perspective for health care research and application, the intent has not been to underplay the important role of the biological sciences in the same venture.
(11) Overplaying natural variations in the weather as climate change is just as much a distortion of science as underplaying them to claim that climate change has stopped or is not happening."
(12) But Sánchez, who wants to focus on social and economic development programmes, continues to publicly underplay the devastating impact of crime on ordinary people’s lives.
(13) Kieron is a thoughtful and level-headed young man, so he may have underplayed events unfolding at sea to make sure we wouldn't worry.
(14) I feel that he is vastly underplayed at both the club and international level."
(15) One Ohio official, addressing Frost, said: “You're not entitled to a pain-free execution.” Waisel told the Guardian that, were initial reports from eyewitnesses accurate, the only mistake he made in his legal declaration was to underplay the length of time it would take for McGuire to lose consciousness.
(16) A report's value can be overplayed if it tells us what we want to hear, or it can be underplayed if it contains unwelcome news or runs against received wisdom.
(17) Fellow actors still analyse the almost throwaway technique of understatement with which he upstaged Laurence Olivier during that player's prime and held his own with Charles Laughton, a grand master of underplayed idiosyncracy.
(18) But lawyers and families of plaintiffs from the Brown case were urged by other speakers not to underplay their momentous achievement during the emotional lunch at the National Press Club.
(19) They find that the circumstances in which competency becomes an issue determine which elements of which tests are stressed and which are underplayed.
(20) The British nuclear industry has a fairly decent safety record, but prudence and openness is vital because the global atomic industry has long been associated with secrecy and has in the past initially underplayed incidents, the worst being the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine.