Word.ws English Dictionary

under way

under way prepositional phrase: in operation, in progress, commenced.

Prepositional phrase

  1. (idiomatic) In operation, in progress, commenced.
    • A dearth of signalmen and the high cost of labour is hastening an elimination process that already was well under way before the second world war.1956 May, C. H. Betts, “St. Pancras Tunnel Signalbox”, in Railway Magazine, page 320
    • The All Blacks drove upfield, using up the remaining moments, and when Joubert blew for another French infringement, the biggest party in New Zealand's history was under way.2011 October 23, Tom Fordyce, “2011 Rugby World Cup final: New Zealand 8-7 France”, in BBC Sport
  2. Moving through the water; not anchored, moored, aground, or beached.
  3. Into motion, into its course.
    • The show finally got under way, just 10 minutes late.

Forms of under way

alternative formunderway

Questions about under way

What does under way mean?
Under way means in operation, in progress, commenced.
What part of speech is under way?
Under way is a prepositional phrase.

Words near under way in the dictionary

  1. under the weather
  2. under the wire
  3. under the yoke
  4. under tow
  5. under water
  6. under way
  7. under weigh
  8. under wraps
  9. under-
  10. under-accommodate
  11. under-accommodated

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: under way (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-under way.ogg.

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