Word.ws English Dictionary

under-

under- prefix: beneath, under.

Prefix

under-

  1. Beneath, under
    • e.g. underground, underneath, underpass
    Synonyms:
    hypo-, sub-, infra-
  2. (figuratively) To go from one side to the other; to progress along a path
    • e.g. understand, undergo, underbear, undertake
  3. Less than, beneath in quantity
    • e.g. underadditive, underage, underbound
    Synonyms:
    en-, hypo-, olig-, meio-
  4. Deficient, below what is correct, insufficient
    • e.g. underapply, underbill, underawe
    Synonyms:
    hypo-, dys-, mal-
  5. Subordinate to
    • e.g. undersecretary, underling, underclass
    Synonyms:
    vice-, sub-

Synonyms of under-

Antonyms

Origin of under-

From Middle English under-, from Old English under-, from Proto-West Germanic *undar, from Proto-Germanic *under, from Proto-Indo-European *(H)n̥dʰér (“below”) and *h₁n̥tér (“inside”). For more, see under.

Questions about under-

What does under- mean?
Under- means beneath, under.
What part of speech is under-?
Under- is a prefix.

Words near under- in the dictionary

  1. under tow
  2. under water
  3. under way
  4. under weigh
  5. under wraps
  6. under-
  7. under-accommodate
  8. under-accommodated
  9. under-accommodates
  10. under-accommodating
  11. under-accommodation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: under- (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “under-.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/under-. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.