(n.) A current below the surface of water, sometimes flowing in a contrary direction to that on the surface.
(n.) Hence, figuratively, a tendency of feeling, opinion, or the like, in a direction contrary to what is publicly shown; an unseen influence or tendency; as, a strong undercurrent of sentiment in favor of a prisoner.
(a.) Running beneath the surface; hidden.
Example Sentences:
(1) Funny nice, the kind that comes with a pleasing undercurrent of naughtiness.
(2) Kenton's alliance with Zaleshoff isn't always an easy one - the journalist is unimpressed by the spy's attempt to fob him off with the official Stalinist line on Trotskyite subversion, for example, and Zaleshoff is, not unreasonably, suspicious of Kenton's motives for helping him - but it's kept afloat by the undercurrent of sexual attraction between Kenton and Zaleshoff's sister.
(3) Discussing activist Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s anthology, Why Are faggots So Afraid Of Faggots?” , academic Alex Rowlson finds that the increasing phenomenon of profiles on gay men’s dating sites that contain exclusion lists like “no blacks; no Asians; no fats; no femmes; str8-acting only” is indicative of a significant undercurrent; that “ the culture of sexual liberation has been replaced by sexual segregation .” I read a staggering piece recently, entitled Why I No Longer Want To Be Gay .
(4) We've never discussed this, but I could feel an undercurrent of regret.
(5) In the longer term, we will see that undercurrent of questioning Jordan’s role in the coalition come back.
(6) Lu, who declined to give her full name for fear of reprisals, has a short bob haircut, a round face and soft, lilting voice that belies an undercurrent of outrage.
(7) When the project was first announced in December, the Hollywood Reporter described it as "a western with contemporary humour, with one undercurrent being just how dangerous and painful life really was in the late 1800s".
(8) In 2001, Williams claimed there was an undercurrent of racism in the crowd and did not play there for another 14 years.
(9) Facebook Twitter Pinterest Trump, trade and racism: economic decay is dividing Ohio Democrats Anywhere but Washington is an eight-part video series exploring the undercurrents of the 2016 election.
(10) It was only a matter of time before one big event gave the undercurrent of racism sanction.
(11) And what is sometimes called national euphoria does in fact have strong undercurrents of divisiveness.
(12) Such stunts have become common for a party that seeks to exploit anger at Greece's social crisis, along with the undercurrent of racism that has accompanied it.
(13) It’s easy enough to hear the sensuality, of course, but to spot the undercurrent that makes her pierce you as much as soothe and seduce you, that’s getting more to the heart of her.
(14) Mizzou history professor Keona Ervin said that beneath the fights about race, economic justice for grad students and reproductive rights was an “undercurrent of black activism that’s been on campus since the 50s, really”.
(15) It offered an illuminating glimpse of the musical undercurrents they'd drawn on in making their groundbreaking debut album, Blue Lines , released in 1991.
(16) As on previous visits, the undercurrent of the visit was that Kim should give up nuclear weapons so that his country can end its relative isolation and embark on an economic modernisation programme.
(17) Some analysts say the changes point to a deep-rooted, yet widely ignored undercurrent of racism in Canadian society.
(18) I wanted it to have this undercurrent of techno, and the loudest drums, the hardest groove to come in in the last four minutes.
(19) Here, I am sad, I have no family, no mother, but she says, ‘don’t be sad’, she is my mother here.” But others are aware of an undercurrent of hostility.
(20) There were also bad and inane films - playing Chinese in Dragon Seed (1944); helpless in Without Love (1945) and The Sea Of Grass (1947), both with Tracy; trying to be Clara Schumann in Song Of Love (1947); and in Vincente Minnelli's neurotic Undercurrent (1946).
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.