Word.ws English Dictionary

undercooked

undercooked is the simple past and past participle of undercook.

Adjective

undercooked (comparative more undercooked, superlative most undercooked)

  1. Insufficiently cooked, so as to be unpalatable or inedible.
    • I can't eat this chicken – it's undercooked.
  2. Very lightly cooked.
    • The broccoli was nicely undercooked.
    • For the main course, order any of the fresh fish from the blackboard; the swordfish is always wonderful (and nicely undercooked, unless you specify otherwise).1987 April, “Restaurants”, in Orange Coast Magazine, volume 13, number 4, page 80
  3. (figuratively) Done with insufficient energy, enthusiasm, etc.
    • His stage portrayal of Hamlet was distinctly undercooked.

Meaning of undercook

Verb

undercook (third-person singular simple present undercooks, present participle undercooking, simple past and past participle undercooked)

  1. (transitive) To cook insufficiently.
    Antonyms:
    overcook, scorch
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To underdo.
    • Liverpool needed a break and they got it at the beginning of the second half, from, of all things, a misplaced City pass. Aké was the culprit, undercooking his attempt to go back to Ederson and seeing Núñez steal in. He toed it away from the goalkeeper and was promptly cleaned out by him.2024 March 10, David Hytner, “Doku involved at both ends as Liverpool and Manchester City share spoils”, in The Guardian
    Antonyms:
    overdo

See all 3 meanings of undercook

Synonyms of undercooked

Antonyms

Forms of undercooked

comparativemore undercooked
superlativemost undercooked

Words formed from undercooked

Words that rhyme with undercooked

Questions about undercooked

What does undercooked mean?
Undercooked means insufficiently cooked, so as to be unpalatable or inedible.
What is undercooked the simple past and past participle of?
Undercooked is the simple past and past participle of undercook.
What part of speech is undercooked?
Undercooked is an adjective.

Words near undercooked in the dictionary

  1. undercontrolled
  2. undercontroller
  3. undercontrollers
  4. underconvicted
  5. undercook
  6. undercooked
  7. undercookedness
  8. undercooker
  9. undercookers
  10. undercooking
  11. undercooks

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: undercooked (page history and authors); undercook (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: “undercooked.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/undercooked. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.